Arctic Cooling Accelero Xtreme 7970 VGA Cooler for AMD Radeon 3x 92MM Fan 2000RPM

Comment:
Installed this cooler on two Powercolor cards for a crossfire configuration, since the stock cooler was allowing temperatures in excess of 90C under load. I'm seeing average temps about 20C lower. Now, and the upper card in Crossfire is coping much better.The instructions aren't terrible, but the task seems a bit daunting at first. Pile of heatsinks, bunch of chips to cover with them, a few hints and a bunch of spare parts, and several clearance issues to work around, and a mounting system that involves peeling and applying tiny two-sided tape rings to spacers, then hoping those sticky rings are enough to make those spacers stay put during the final assembly.It gets mentioned in almost every review, but the thermal epoxy is a problem for this kit. If you prep the surfaces, mix the two-parts of the glue for at least 5 minutes, and perform some voodoo magic, the "cured" product is still a jiggly non-solid that does not create  confidence.My first card started drop ping heatsinks as soon as I got in into position to install. Since I installed the coolers on each of my cards about a week apart, so I learned from my errors. The second cooler only needed about 5 chips re-epoxied.I was annoyed, and refused to order a different adhesive or tape, so I used an unconventional solution -- a drop  or two of off-brand "crazy" glue on each chip, right on top of the failed thermal epoxy. drop  the heatsink back on top and smoosh it around, and it set up in a few seconds. Yes, I know crazy glue is probably a poor thermal conductor, but I only added a tiny bit, and the heatsinks still seem to get plenty hot. Worked like a charm.In the end, this is a product that WORKS GREAT. It's just a shame its such a pain to install, and fairly expensive. The thermal glue is simply unacceptable in my opinion, and I feel strongly enough about this I won't just give this thing five stars because of the end result. The product was essentially unusable to me without additional supplies. I give the total package a "satisfactory" 3 stars.

Comment:
great solution to keep your amd 7970 quiet. overclocking is a breeze with this cooler. hard to install but well worth it. more performance and much quieter than stock cooler

Comment:
I bought this 5 months ago to replace the stock cooler on my XFX R7970. Installation was very difficult. It took some time to figure out how to install it, I found the installation guide to be nothing but garbage. When I was installing the VRM heatsinks, half of them would not stay still and fell off before the adhesive could cure. The second issue is when it is sitting in the case, it weighs down the card. I had to use ty-raps to secure it so it was not hanging down half an inch. When the installation was completely figured out I tried it in my PC and temperatures dropped quite significantly. I keep the fan on 80% and never go up past 55 degress celcius with two monitors. Despite the temperature and noise difference, I would not buy again. $85 is not worth it on top of the GPU price. Go with a MSI GTX 680 instead, it's less frigging around.

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FYI, if you happen to have Cooler Master XB case, you can't install this cooler with H100i installed at the front. Going to get rid of H100i and get H80i as a result.

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The stock cooler on most 7970 models is quite loud, and prone to failure (I'm looking at you, Gigabyte). The fans on the last Gigabyte 6950 I owned failed within months, and rather than sending a card out for RMA for a simple fan failure I replaced it with the same model of Accelero as this is. Being a forward thinker, I ordered this to replace the stock cooling on the card right off the bat this time. The cooler is heavy, so you should strongly consider getting a stand / making one to support the end of your card after installation. A small black piece of dowel will do.Beyond that, I run a Gigabyte 7970 GHz edition - the stock cooler was a little more efficient that the previous models and would idle around 45C in my cool basement environment. The Accelero brings that down to 38. Load is a difference of 72 down to 56, respectively.

Comment:
I bought these a few weeks ago for my crossfire 7970s, I was looking for a quieter solution to keeping them cool with a significant overclock. The cards they're on are MSI R7970 reference cards, and they run at 1104mhz core and 6ghz memory.Installation was pretty involved, so I wouldn't try unless you're very confident in your abilities dismantling and rebuilding electronics.Results are great, temperatures on both cards never went above 57 degrees C, even when benchmarking with 3Dmark11 and they are very quiet even under load.The coolers make the card a 3 slot card, so tri-fire would be difficult, but crossfire on most enthusiast boards (I am running an MSI MPower Z77 board) will not be a problem.Overall, a great cooler for a great price, but make sure you install it right.

Comment:
The pros first: Yes, just as the reviews say, this cooling setup is far quieter than a stock AMD cooler, and far more effective as well. If that's what you're looking for in an air-cooled solution, go for it.On the downside, though, installation is a bit of a task. Once you've removed the stock cooling setup from your card and cleaned all the surfaces that'll be receiving a heat-sink, you get to mix the thermal epoxy. The example I got had gotten inconsistent and so each of the two blister packet contained a runny component and a sludgy bit that didn’t really want to squeeze out very well at all. After mixing for the required 5 minutes you end up with a substance that likes to stick in equal measure to the included mini spatula as to the board components, which can lead to a bit of a mess. After leaving the whole thing to set overnight (the recommendation is for 5 hours to cure) my thermal epoxy still seemed jiggly and unset. Nothing has fallen off yet, as far as I can see, but this result does not inspire confidence.Once you’ve assembled your card and cooler, you may also note that your previously 2-width GPU is now a 2-and-a-bit width GPU that encroaches on the 3rd slot and the total length of the unit is quite a bit longer than the stock cooler. For me this wasn’t really an issue, since I have ample room in my giant PC case, but if you’re running Crossfire or have tightly filled expansion slots, you should keep this in mind.In conclusion, the performance of the product is good, at least initially. I hope the long-term quality holds up. The downsides are that it’s a bit of a hassle to install and the final size of the unit is bigger than stock.

Comment:
Above all, it does exceed my expectation. It is a great cooler in this price level

Comment:
If you apply the tape that's included to protect the tiny components in front of the VRms, the tape actually interfered with the VRM heatsinks seating properly. Luckily I noticed that the 3 larger VRM heatsinks were riding on the tape and tipped slightly. I removed them and re-applied another piece of tape but found that in order to cover the components correctly to prevent them touching the heatsinks, I had it right the first time. Arctic Cooling should make the VRM heatsinks about 0.020" narrower and this issue would go away. I'm not sure if my heatsinks were too wide or maybe the pre-cut tape was. My solution was to apply a small weight to the tops while the adhesive was drying. Everything seems to work fine.

Comment:
I highly recommend this cooler for anyone trying to drive multiple displays with their Radeon HD7970. The 7970 cannot throttle back to a low power state if you're driving more than one display. With the stock cooler, my idle temps were 60C and load temps were 90C. Not only that, it sounded like a hair-blower when trying to keep up with the heat load under full load.This VGA cooler is the ultimate solution to both the noise and the heat. The 3 fans are inaudible over my case fans and the temperatures have dropped to 38 C idle/48 C full load. Overall case temperatures are also down.The install is complex and not for the faint of heart, but it's worth it for multi-monitor users, looking for quiet operation and low temps.I can't recommend this VGA cooler enough. 5 Stars!