Arctic Accelero Twin Turbo 690
A colossal cooler
for a monster graphics card
Nos: Excellent
cooling; very quiet
Turbo: Expensive
How much?
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Price: $192
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Manufacturer: arctic.ac
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SKU number DCACO-V780001-BL
In detail
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Compatibility: Nvidia GeForce: GTX 690
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Weight: 805g
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Size (mm): 288 x 138 x 50 (W x D x H)
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Fans: 2x 120mm
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Stated noise: 0.4sone
Arctic Accelero Twin Turbo 690
Arctic has a great
cooling reputation that stretches all the way back to the early issues of
Custom PC. Since its early PU coolers, it’s branched out into immensely popular
CPU coolers, as well as thermal paste, but it’s graphics card cooling that
Artic seems to take particularly seriously. It has a cooler for practically any
graphics card you can buy today, or could have owned in the past few years. The
latest card to receive the Arctic treatment is the GeForce GTX 690, with the
biggest third-party graphics card cooler we’ve seen.
The Accelero Twin
Turbo 690 as an absolute monster, stretching over an inch past the side of the
reference GeForce GTX 690 4GB PCB and turning the graphics card into a triple
slot leviathan for good measure. It’s so big that we couldn’t fit it into our
SilverStone PS03 thermal test rig, so we had to compare it to the reference
cooler without the side panel for both tests. Its huge bulk enables it to sport
two 120mm fans, each with five 6mm heatpipes and copper contact plates, which
sit on each GPU core.
Arctic’s other
large graphics card coolers often include what seems like a millions pieces,
such as mini-heatsinks to fit a variety of RAM modules and banks of VRMs.
Fitting them can be extremely tedious, and also adds the risk factor of
creating short circuits if any of them fall off.
Thankfully, the
Accelero Twin Turbo 690 is a single-piece unit, cooling the whole card via one
huge cooling plate. You just need to attach numerous lengths of thermal
padding, deal with the mountain of screws that hold the reference cooler to the
PCB and the rest is straightforward. However, we were slightly concerned about
the need to apply non-conductive tape to several areas to prevent short
circuits which isn’t something that you want when you’re dealing with an $1293
graphics card.
With our pulses
racing, and covering our eyes in case it blew up in our dace, we were met with
virtually no noise when we fired up our test rig. The cooler is inaudible, even
with the graphics card under load. We had to check the fans were spinning,
which they were, but even at full speed, you have to place your ear right next
to them to hear anything.
This is certainly
a vast improvement over the stock cooler. Its cooling ability was just as
impressive – the Accelero Twin Turbo 690 managed to knock a massive 190C
off the stock cooler, coming in with a delta T of 350C, as opposed
to 540C when running the Unigine Heaven benchmark an amazing result.
Conclusion
We were hugely
impressed by the Accelero Twin Turbo 690’s cooling power – or rather a little
disappointed with the stock cooler. Despite the sky-high cost of the GeForce
GTX 690, it’s clear that the stock cooler isn’t great. Noise was also drastically
reduced. How many Accelero Twin Turbo 690s Arctic will sell remains to be seen,
especially as they retail for $192. However, if you can afford to buy Nvidia’s
flagship, you can probably afford this cooler, and it will be worth it too.
Scores
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Cooling: 39/40
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Design: 26/30
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Value: 15/30
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Fitting: Good
Thermaltake Water 2.0 Pro
Thermaltake
returns to the liquid cooling market
Sub-Zero:
Excellent cooling; easy to install; fits in small cases
Chilly: Expensive;
very noisy
How much?
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Price: $145.5
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Manufacturer: http://thermaltake.com
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SKU number: CLW0216
In detail
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Compatibility Intel: LGA775, LGA1156, LGA1155, LGA2011,
LGA1366
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AMD: Socket FM1/AM3+/AM3/AM2+/AM2
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Weight: 1.06kg
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Size (mm): 150 x 120 x 49 (radiator)
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Fan: 2x 120mm
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Stated noise: 27dBA
Thermaltake Water 2.0 Pro
The Water 2.0 Pro
is the first Thermaltake liquid-cooler we’ve seen for a while. It features a
full-thickness, single radiator sandwiched between two 120mm fans, and a
combined pump and water block. At $145.5, though, it’s very expensive compared
to the competition; the Corsair H80, for example, costs just $113. The Water
2.0 Pro also has no manual fan control or software. Comparatively, Corsair’s
high-end all in one liquid coolers have three fan speed settings, while Antect’s
equivalents even include fan-control software.
Thankfully,
installing the Water 2.0 Pro was far easier than many air coolers. The job took
less than five minutes in our LGA2011 test system, with just four thumbscrews
screwing through a mounting bracket into the CPU socket’s threaded holes; other
CPU sockets simply require the use of a backplate. Meanwhile, the radiator has
fan-direction guidelines for exhausting air from the case our preferred
arrangement. Even in our small SilverStone PS03 case, we had no problem
installing the radiator in the rear 120mm fan mount. Four long screws are
included for each fan with the rear screws passing through the case and fan
before screwing into the radiator.
The Water 2.0 Pro proved
to be extremely loud in use, however, blasting a lot of air out of our case.
The thermal results were stellar though; it matched the Corsair H100 on its
highest speed in our demanding LGA2011 test system, and it was 50C
cooler than the Corsair H80 at full speed. It also matched the H100, H80 and
Antec Kuhler H2O 920 at their maximum speeds in our LGA 115 test
system, while coming second overall in our Socket AM3+ system.
Conclusion
The Water 2.0 Pro
proved to be just as good, if not better, than many all-in-one liquid coolers
at their highest settings. However, it’s frustrating that you can’t manually
reduce the intrusive fan noise, especially when you consider the lofty price.
It’s a great cooler, but you’ll need to reduce the fan speeds if you want to
live with it on a daily basis.
Scores: Lga1155
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Cooling: 36/40
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Design: 21/30
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Value: 19/30
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Fitting: Good
Scores: Lga2011
·
Cooling: 37/40
·
Design: 22/30
·
Value: 23/30
·
Fitting: Good
Scores: Socket
am3+
·
Cooling: 36/40
·
Design: 21/30
·
Value: 20/30
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Fitting: Good
