X-bit labs

XIGMATEK BATTLE-AXE VD964 and AURAS Fridge VGA Coolers (page 12)

Category: Coolers

by Sergey Lepilov

[ 04/01/2008 | 10:13 AM ]

Conclusion

Two new graphics card coolers we have discussed today made a very positive overall impression. Nevertheless, I cannot help pointing out a few drawbacks that we noticed. XIGMATEK BATTLE-AXE VD964 has very large distance between the heatpipes in the cooler base, which may theoretically cause local overheating of some graphics chips that do not have a heat-spreader. To be fair I have to say that nothing like that happens on a G92 GPU and the cooler featuring heatpipes direct touch technology demonstrates impressive efficiency. I certainly cannot disregard the fact that the coolers block three PCI slots next to the graphics card and that the new coolers do not remove hot air outside the system case like the contemporary reference coolers do. We can also complain about the fact that XIGMATEK BATTLE-AXE VD964 cooler is missing the fan rotation speed controller and generates quite a bit of noise, while AURAS Fridge comes without any 92mm fans and proper retention for them in the accessories bundle.

You may be overwhelmed with these drawbacks, but the truth is that they all step back when it comes to unprecedented efficiency of these cooling solutions. These two graphics card coolers are indisputable performance leaders on graphics cards with bare GPUs as well as those with heat-spreaders on them. They outperform such well-known opponents as Arctic Cooling Accelero S1 and Accelero Xtreme 8800. Moreover, unlike the latter, XIGMATEK and AURAS solutions are universal coolers, which means that they make a much smarter investment than Xtreme 8800/2900.

All in all, I can conclude that today overclockers got another two highly efficient graphics card cooling solutions. And those who haven’t yet made up their mind to replace the roaring reference cooler on their hot graphics card got another reason to think things over one more time.