The Hardware

And now, today's heat-vanquishing heroes...

ATI's Stock X1900 XTX/XT Cooler

The stock Radeon X1900 XTX cooler

Best price found: N/A, included with the video card

The de-facto standard cooler for ATI's powerhouse is the stock X1900 XTX/XT cooler, which is notable for being the only dual-slot cooler available for the X1900 series. Will its ability to push GPU-heated air out of the case give it an edge against the other contenders?

Hardware

ATI's stock cooler is very reminiscent of Arctic Cooling's NV5. It features a copper core that contacts the GPU, surrounded by an aluminum casing that contacts the memory (through thermal pads). There are no heat pipes in this cooler; it uses simple copper fins to dissipate heat.

This cooler's powerful radial fan pulls air from inside the case and expels it out of the back of the PC. This is a very nice feature, because all of the GPU's heat would otherwise certainly drive the case temperature up, and this is not a good thing (especially for CPU overclockers).

Installation

Not applicable, as it comes pre-installed with the X1900 XTX and XT.