The Arctic Accelero Xtreme III, Detailed
The great thing about this aftermarket cooler is a reasonable price relative to the Radeon R9 290. At $75, you can add it and still come in well under an R9 290X, but match or exceed the pricier card's performance. Of course, it's great that the Accelero Xtreme III is compatible with AMD's new cards, and is also pretty light as well.
Compared to the Alpenfoehn Peter and Prolimatech's MK-26, this thermal solution is less expensive and bundled with fans, which cost you extra after buying those other kits. It even matches the PCB's dimensions fairly well, aside from a few minor differences that we'll address during the assembly stage. They don't pose a problem, though.
| Specifications | |
|---|---|
| Model | Arctic Accelero Xtreme III |
| Heat Sink / Heat Pipes | Copper Heat Sink 5 x 6 mm Copper Heat Pipes 84 Cooling Fins (0.3 mm Aluminum) |
| Fans | 3 x 92 mm Fans (0.12 A / 12 V) |
| RPM Range: | 900-2000 RPM (PWM-Controlled) |
| Maximum Noise | 0.5 Sone |
| Power Consumption | 4.32 W |
| Dimensions | 288 mm (Length) x 104 mm (Height) x 54 mm (Width) |
| Weight | 653 g |
| Warranty | Six Years |
| Product Webpage | Accelero Xtreme Webpage |
| Price | $75 |
As I browsed through the cooler's contents, I noticed that we were short four memory heat sinks (the R9 290 needs 16 for its 256 MB packages, and Arctic only includes 12). Fortunately, this isn't a show-stopper. Part of AMD's approach to this card was widening the memory bus to 512 bits and running its GDDR5 at more conservative frequencies, scaling back on voltage at the same time. The memory packages don't get so hot that they pose a thermal issue. If you still feel compelled to cool them off, buying an optional kit for the GeForce GTX 260/275/280 should suffice.
The Modified Card's Specifications
The cooler's specifications are interesting enough, but we needed to know if it'd fit in our case. So, next, we measured the Radeon R9 290's weight and dimensions with the new cooler set up.
| The Modified Card's Specifications | |
|---|---|
| Length | 320 mm |
| Height | 120 mm (From Top Edge of PCIe Slot) |
| Depth | 60 mm (2.5-Slot)5 mm Back-Side (Through Back Plate) |
| Weight | 978 g |
