The VGA coolers were tested using a
Gigabyte GeForce 7800 GTX graphics card which comes slightly
overclocked from factory. The stress test results were
recorded in 3Dmark2006, after an hour long continuous loop
of the 3D tests. The idle results were recorded as the
system lay dormant at the desktop in Windows XP for 20
minutes.
As you can see the standard cooling
tends to get quite hot once the GeForce 7800 GTX is under
full load. Here the temperature hits 53 degrees, which is
similar to today’s CPU’s heat output. The Zalman coolers
were only able to slightly reduce the stress temperature,
though neither dipped below 50 degrees. The Arctic-Cooling
NV5 Silencer managed a stress temperature of 49 degrees
which was quite good. The new Accelero X1 did exceptionally
well lowering the stress temperature to 46 degrees, which is
a 7 degree improvement over standard cooling.
It is important to note that both the
Zalman and Arctic-Cooling products are significantly quieter
than the standard cooling when under full load. This makes
the stress temperature results even more impressive. The
Thermalright V-1 matched the Zalman VF900-Cu at idle, though
the stress test results strongly favored the Thermalright
V-1. The Thermalright V-1 Ultra was the best performer,
reducing the full load temperature to just 41 degrees. This
is a huge 12 degree improvement over the standard cooling
setup.
More results…
Surprisingly the latest 3D benchmark
from Futuremark failed to place enough load on the GeForce
7800 GTX, as the stress temp results were relatively low.
After spending most of today running the tests again using
F.E.A.R, the results look a lot different. Well at least the
temperatures look a lot different, while the performance
trends are still much the same.
The Thermalright V-1 Ultra is now 33%
cooler than stock, rather than the original 22%. The
Arctic-Cooling Accelero X1 has gone from a 12% improvement
in 3Dmark2006, to a 19% improvement over stock cooling in
F.E.A.R. The Thermalright V-1/V-1 Ultra were still by far
the best performers of the bunch.
