Arctic Accelero Xtreme 7970 VGA Cooler Review

In order to test the efficiency of the Arctic Accelero Xtreme 7970 VGA cooler we installed this cooler on a HD 7970 and ran some tests.

We gathered idle temperatures by leaving the system on the desktop in an idle state for 15 minutes, we then collect the idle temperature using either GPU-Z or CPUID HW Monitor. For load temperatures we put the Unigine Heaven DirectX 11 benchmark on for a few runs through and then took the maximum temperature for the period as recorded by our previously mentioned diagnostic programs.

Using Unigine Heaven is a more realistic way of collecting gaming load temperatures as opposed to FurMark which doesn’t replicate a real-world scenario. To account for differences in ambient temperatures we use delta temperature figures.

To get the acoustic performance of the Accelero Xtreme 7970 VGA cooler we used a decibel meter held 50 centimetres away from the fans and took a reading when the HD 7970 was in an idle state and when the HD 7970 was under load.

The same tests were performed on the stock HD 7970 cooler so that we have some point of comparison, it also makes sense to compare it to the stock cooler as this is the cooler most people will want and need to upgrade from.

The full details of the testing are below.

Testing Method:

• Maximum GPU temperature from a 15 minute gaming load simulation test
• Minimum GPU temperature from a 15 minute desktop idle simulation test (with brief gaming load simulation before to prevent the start-up cool period from affecting results)
• The cooler’s fans are set to PWM unless stated otherwise
• Tests are repeated 3 times for consistency
• Delta temperatures (Recorded temperature minus Ambient temperature) are always used
• The supplied VGA thermal paste is always used for fair testing purposes
• There is a 1 degree margin of error in ambient temperature testing and GPU temperature testing.
• There is a 1 dBA margin of error in acoustic performance testing

Software used:

• Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
• CPUID HWMonitor
• GPU-Z
• Unigine Heaven

Test system:

• ASUS P8Z77-V
• Intel Core i5 3570K with Scythe Mugen 3
• 16GB Kingston HyperX 1866MHz DDR3
• AMD Radeon HD 7970 at stock clocks with the Arctic Accelero Xtreme 7970 VGA cooler and supplied Thermal grease
• 128GB Kingston SSDnow V100 (Boot Drive) and Samsung F3 1TB (storage)
• Antec High Current Gamer 620W
• Cooler Master Test Bench v1.0