Arctic Cooling Accelero L2 Pro Graphics Card Cooler Review

[brianthesnail]

Hi there
what is it with graphic card manufactuers like xfx,evga and zotac... they use these massive stock coolers which are generally not that good at cooling... the fan draws minimal air into the cooling unit and because of this the idle tempertures fluctuate between the low sixties and high seventies... not that good when you running intensive games such as crysis
well thats what happened to my XFX GTS250 .. around a month ago the idle temperture was 74°C and at load this would rise to as much as 95°C.. so i removed the card for safety reasons and have been using my old sapphire radeon x1950pro... which allthough slower than the gts250 it still managed to run the majority of my pc game collection
well after checking out the avalible gpu coolers i thought i would give the "Arctic Cooling Accelero L2 Pro" a try.. at £13 its not that expensive and the gts250 is shown in the supported cards
installation :
removing the stock XFX GTS250 cooler was a breeze.. simply remove the 8 screws...4 which hold the cooler in place and the other four that hold the gpu cooler plate... then with a gentle tug the complete cooler was safely removed.... i then used a eraser to clean and prepare the memory and voltage regulators... and then used acetone to clean the gpu.....
then i attached the memory sinks and vrm sinks... however the voltage regulator heatsinks were very tiny and hard to place however with patience i managed this and the heatsinks were in place....... i then placed the spacers and then connected the fan/heatsink assemebly... this then completed the cooler installation

before i use the modified XFX GTS250 i wanted to check tempertures using my spare pci-express test pc.... and i used speedfan and gpu-z to check for tempertures and general specs...
i was expecting a few degrees off the stock temperture..maybe 10°C if i was lucky however when speedfan reported 51°C i nearlly fell off my chair..!
thats a 21°C drop in gpu temperture.... amazing ... however just to be sure i left the pc and checked a hour later,, still 51°C ......so with that i then ran 3d mark 05 ..... and the load tempeture never went above 67°C ... thats 7°C cooler than the previous stock idle tempeture....
heres speedfan :

in regards to the noise...well there isnt any... i had to put my ear right next to the fan to hear a very faint sound of the gpu fan,however inside a case it would be near enough silent ....
the only downside is the capacitors are not protected and the card seems more fragile than before.. however since most people will be fitting it back in their rig straight away this shouldnt be a issue. .
summary ... in three words .... best graphics cooler.... if your in the market for a replacement cooler to rescue a noisy graphics card then the Arctic Cooling Accelero L2 Pro Graphics Card Cooler is the product for you... and at just under £13 it represents excellent value

finally heres a list of the supported cards :
ATI Radeon........................
HD 5870, 5850
HD 5770, 5750
HD 4850, 4830, 4730
HD 4670, 4650
HD 4550
HD 3870, 3850
HD 3650
HD 3470, 3450
HD 2600, 2400
X1950 (Pro), X1900 (GT)
X1800, X1600
X1550, X1300 series
Nvidia GeForce.....................
GT220, GT240
GTS250
9800, 9600, 9500, 9400
8800GT, 8800GTS(G92)
8600, 8500
7950, 7900, 7800
7600, 7300
6800, 6600
FX5950, FX5900
FX5800, FX5700 series

the Arctic Cooling Accelero L2 Pro is one of the best gpu coolers around and the best in its price range.. and can transform a noisy gaming rig into a tranquil pc for less than £13 ...

hope this helps you decide .....

 

[borisof007]

Thanks for the info!

 

[17seconds]

That's pretty cool. KFA2 just released their GTX480 LTD OC Anarchy card which comes with the Arctic Cooling Acelero Extreme Plus cooler. The review shows that the cooler keeps the card at 50-55c while playing games. They were also able to get the card up to 900mhz at only 65c, which is ~35c less than the reference models.
http://www.guru3d.com/article/kfa2-geforce-gtx-480-ltd-oc-anarchy-review/