- Jul 10, 2012
- 102
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- 10,710
I installed my Arctic Accelero Hybrid II GPU cooler on my top mounted (SLI) GTX 970 card today since that was running too loud for my liking ever since I went SLI. Installation was a pain. I have installed aftermarket coolers on two graphics cards earlier (also many, many CPUs, but that is always a breeze compared to graphics cards) and this was by far the worst. Not only were the instructions really poor, they didn't even include the 9xx series nVIdia cards (even though they are listed as supported cards). Much of the installation is pure guesswork unless you know exactly what components are what on the card. I have somewhat an idea, and figured out the rest by comparing with the two cards they had as examples, but mostly by looking at how the stock cooler worked.
Also, the included radiator fan that is supposed to go into a 4 pin PWM GPU type connector on the graphics card won't connect to my MSI GTX 970 Gaming, since that has some special cooler with a 2 pin plus a 6 pin connector on the card. No 4-pin, and I even tried connecting it different ways in the 6-pin, none worked.
So the PWM fan included won't work at all, and I have no other good PWM fans lying around, so had to order a good Noctua NF-F12 PWM, and that added to the cost of getting this up and running by almost 1/4 of the Arctic's total price. It will also mean I must set up a custom fan curve in Speedfan later on, and I don't like being dependent on that software. For now I have an older 120mm case fan blowing over the radiator, rear mounted as exhaust. It does a decent job of cooling at max speed (1200 rpm), but is noisy as ****.
Another issue to mention is that the clips meant to hold the big heatsink in place are crap. They hardly stay on if I try to tighten them, and there is no other way of doing that. I also hade to leave one "corner" (they include 6 clips, 3 for each long side) since the heat sink doesn't reach past the PCI-E port, and I can't well try to put a clip ever the edge of the card over the PCI-E port...
Also (this list is getting long, this has been a frustrating day for me), they haven't thought of adding longer screws that screws throught the entire fan when mounting it on the radiator (like Corsair does), they instead have short screws that only reach through one edge of the fan, meaning it requires a screwdriver that is small enough to fit through the holes of the fan, but still big enough to actually grab onto the screw. I didn't even have one of those, so I had to go find one at a friends house.
Lastly, I have had the system running for at least 5 hours now, and it is still spitting around some air bubbles from time to time. And yes, I have installed it the recommended way, with the radiator above the pump, and the radiator mounted with the hose connections on the bottom.
If I had a decent fan I would share some actual performance results, but I haven't, so I'll wait. At the moment it's somewhat "meh", and also I'm too damn angry to bother with testing it out now.
If I get my Noctua F12 on thurs or fri I'll write back with some actual results. After fiddling with Speedfan for ages trying to get the right fan curve...sigh.
Also, the included radiator fan that is supposed to go into a 4 pin PWM GPU type connector on the graphics card won't connect to my MSI GTX 970 Gaming, since that has some special cooler with a 2 pin plus a 6 pin connector on the card. No 4-pin, and I even tried connecting it different ways in the 6-pin, none worked.
So the PWM fan included won't work at all, and I have no other good PWM fans lying around, so had to order a good Noctua NF-F12 PWM, and that added to the cost of getting this up and running by almost 1/4 of the Arctic's total price. It will also mean I must set up a custom fan curve in Speedfan later on, and I don't like being dependent on that software. For now I have an older 120mm case fan blowing over the radiator, rear mounted as exhaust. It does a decent job of cooling at max speed (1200 rpm), but is noisy as ****.
Another issue to mention is that the clips meant to hold the big heatsink in place are crap. They hardly stay on if I try to tighten them, and there is no other way of doing that. I also hade to leave one "corner" (they include 6 clips, 3 for each long side) since the heat sink doesn't reach past the PCI-E port, and I can't well try to put a clip ever the edge of the card over the PCI-E port...
Also (this list is getting long, this has been a frustrating day for me), they haven't thought of adding longer screws that screws throught the entire fan when mounting it on the radiator (like Corsair does), they instead have short screws that only reach through one edge of the fan, meaning it requires a screwdriver that is small enough to fit through the holes of the fan, but still big enough to actually grab onto the screw. I didn't even have one of those, so I had to go find one at a friends house.
Lastly, I have had the system running for at least 5 hours now, and it is still spitting around some air bubbles from time to time. And yes, I have installed it the recommended way, with the radiator above the pump, and the radiator mounted with the hose connections on the bottom.
If I had a decent fan I would share some actual performance results, but I haven't, so I'll wait. At the moment it's somewhat "meh", and also I'm too damn angry to bother with testing it out now.
If I get my Noctua F12 on thurs or fri I'll write back with some actual results. After fiddling with Speedfan for ages trying to get the right fan curve...sigh.
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