Date:
Thursday , March 13, 2008
Author:
Marc Adams
Editor:
Kyle Bennett
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Arctic Cooling Accelero S1 Rev.2

Inexpensive cooling for a hotter than hell 8800 GT sound like a good idea? Many have probably considered the Accelero S1 but might have been confused by the low price. For around US$25 this might be the best video card insurance you ever bought.

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SYSTEM SETUP

Testing of the Accelero S1 will occur on our new test bed. This consists of the Asus Maximus Formula paired with an Intel Core 2 Quad Extreme Edition model QX9650. (Pictures of our Intel specified thermistor-embedded processor can be seen here.)

The Accelero heat sink will be tested on our NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT as Arctic Cooling now certifies revision 2 of this cooler to work with this card.

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Test Methods

CPU

For this article the CPU will be kept at stock speed. The loading application we are using, ATiTool, requires few cycles from the CPU to fully load the GPU. This aspect will assist us in isolating the video cards temperature from the rest of the system.

GPU

To aid in GPU isolation the video card will be tested in the second PCIe slot on the motherboard that is farthest away from the CPU. For this article the GPU will be tested at both its default settings of 600/900 (Core/VMem) and overclocked settings of 700/1000.

Thermal Paste

Testing each cooler will be done under strictly controlled conditions to ensure results. Zalman's STG1 thermal paste was selected again for this test for a few key reasons. Firstly, the thermal paste has been shown to require no curing time allowing us to test each heat sink within a reasonable time frame. Any curing time could introduce variables into the equation causing at best dubious results and at worst unreliable ones. Secondly, thanks to the unique applicator of the STG1 it is very easy to apply a thin layer across the GPU consistently thereby removing yet another possible variable from the mix.

Because the Accelero S1 comes with pre-applied thermal paste we will test the performance of this paste to give our readers a clearer picture of the cooler’s ‘out of the box’ performance.

Ambient temperature will be kept at 25C for the duration of the tests and measured with a MicroTemp EXP non-contact infrared thermometer and cross referenced with the Sperry Digital 4 Point thermometer. Any variance greater then 0.2C will halt the testing until temperatures return within spec for fifteen minutes.

Idle

Idle temperatures will be recorded after a fifteen minute period of inactivity. Any fluctuation during the last sixty seconds will reset the timer for an additional five minutes.

Load

Load temperatures will be recorded after a fifteen minute period of 100% GPU load. To obtain this we will be using ATITOOL. This has been shown to place a heavy, constant load on the GPU. The benefit of this is that we will be loading the GPU in a consistent, repeatable manner. This is truly a worst case scenario. Any fluctuation during the last sixty seconds will reset the timer for an additional five minutes.

Sound

Sound levels will be measured with a Reliability Direct AR824 sound meter from a distance of four feet away. With everything turned off in our test lab the meter registered a sound level of 38dB(A).

Passive Testing

Testing of heat sinks in passive mode is going to be handled a bit differently than before. Rather than testing the cooler with zero air flow, we are going to include a low flow fan to help recreate the air flow inside of a computer case. The fan of choice is the Noctua NF-P12; coupled with its ultra low noise adapter causing the fan to rotate at a rate of 700 RPM. Zero air flow testing results will also be included as well.

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