Cooling Efficiency and Acoustic Performance

Cooling Efficiency

The cooling efficiency diagram shows the coolers lined up in a descending order for the graphics processor temperature (GPU Temp) and ambient temperature (Ambient Temp) under maximum workload. First let’s check out the results for GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB:

Well, finally there came the time when even a cooler like Arctic Cooling Accelero S1 becomes the least efficient solution (besides the reference cooling systems, of course).  Both newcomers from XIGMATEK and AURAS demonstrated excellent cooling efficiency on the overclocked graphics core as well as in terms of the ambient graphics card temperature. Here I have to stress that in case of BATTLE-AXE cooler installed directly onto G92 chip only two heatpipes out of four actually work, because only to have direct connect with the chip. I doubt that aluminum plate gets the other two heatpipes involved into the cooling process, however, despite this fact the XIGMATEK cooler becomes one of the leaders of our today’s test session. I said “one of the leaders”, because the laurels in the most comfortable quiet mode belong indisputably to AURAS solution.

I think expecting AURAS Fridge to cool the overclocked GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB in passive mode would be too much to ask, because it is one of the top chips of Nvidia based graphics accelerators these days, which is also overclocked quite significantly. However, it easily copes with an overclocked GeForce 8600 GTS keeping its temperature at around 70ºC without any fans involved. As for the active mode, I have to say that a pair of two 92-mm fans is definitely more preferable than a single 120-mm fan in terms of maximum cooling efficiency. We checked out two possible positions for the single 120-mm fan: closer to the graphics card output panel and on the other end of the PCB right above the voltage regulator circuitry. In the latter case the chip and PCB temperatures were stably 2ºC lower that is why we would recommend this particular installation as preferable (see the corresponding photograph in our review).

Now it is time to check out the coolers performance with a GeForce 8800 GTX based graphics card, where our today’s newcomers from XIGMATEK and AURAS should face an even more powerful opponent - Arctic Cooling Accelero Xtreme 8800 that impressed us with its extreme efficiency but disappointed a little with lack of universality:

And again both new coolers perform great. Each of them is either as efficient as Arctic Cooling Accelero Xtreme 8800, or outperforms it. We were extremely pleased with AURAS Fridge that provided not only the best GPU cooling, but also the best PCB cooling over the entire test session.