Arctic Cooling Accelero Hybrid VGA Cooler Review: Not For the Faint of Heart
by Dustin Sklavos on December 28, 2012 8:15 PM EST- Posted in
- Arctic Cooling
- graphics
- cooling
Conclusion: Expensive, Difficult, Potentially Worth It
My experiences with the Arctic Cooling Accelero Hybrid have revealed a product that's not unlike a powerful weapon. The end result of having the Hybrid installed on a GeForce GTX 680 is almost something that must be seen to be believed, and I imagine the AMD Radeon HD 7970 version is just as impressive (if not possibly even more vital given the GHz Edition's notorious noise level). At the same time, the Accelero Hybrid is really, really not for amateurs.
Creating something like the Accelero Hybrid is an uphill battle from the word "go." There isn't a whole lot that can really be done about that; they could produce a broad variety of individual packages for each card type, but that's not cost effective for them, and the Accelero Hybrid is expensive enough as it is. Assembling this kind of product was just going to be fiddly.
The problem is that I still feel like it could've been made at least a little simpler. The shroud itself feels chintzy, and the awkward shape and size isn't particularly attractive and oftentimes feels like it's even in the way a bit when doing assembly. Parts of this process could have been handled before the product shipped: all of the spacers could've been on adhesive sheets, the rubber pads could've been preinstalled in the shroud (and the shroud itself could've had spots that properly fit the spacers), and I have to wonder if they couldn't have even just built the shroud and waterblock as one single large piece. The instructions are for the most part detailed, but they aren't perfect, and more detail and care would've helped.
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And then there's that price I keep mentioning. The Arctic Cooling Accelero Hybrid sells for a not inconsiderable $169 ($149 for the 7970 version), so they abuse your wallet, your time, and your fingers. With so much stacked against it, it's hard to fathom why you'd actually go through all the hassle. That is, until you actually see it in action.
What Arctic Cooling is asking for the Accelero Hybrid is an awful lot, but you actually do get quite a bit in the process. For the GTX 680 at least, the Accelero Hybrid is a substantial improvement. Thermals drop close to the 30C that Arctic Cooling advertises, which is tremendous, and the Hybrid is slightly audible at its worst. The card runs much quieter, much cooler, and because of this, the GTX 680 at least can actually gain a little bit of performance headroom. So you're looking at $169 and a couple of hours of work in exchange for a substantial amount of upside.
The price and difficulty of assembly rule out an Editor's Choice award, and this product is most definitely not for everyone regardless, but if you have the experience, time, patience, and funds required, there's a strong case to be made for making this upgrade.
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halo37253 - Saturday, December 29, 2012 - link
Yeah right, No one wants a big HSF in their PC. CLC's don't leak, if your one of the vary few I feel bad for ya. Compared to HSF CLCs are quiet and take up vary little space. They tend to Overclock just as good as the best HSFs as well. I personally would just get a rasa kit for cheap if I was going to get into water cooling, as water cooling is dead easy to do try it and you'll see for your self.For overclocking a GPU nothing can touch water cooling, I have my GTX470's under water and they scream. Though under air even at only 800mhz they would get into the 90-104c while gaming. Water is just the way to go if you want a quiet PC while pushing the overclocks on everything in your system. I'm done hearing fan noise, and sadly Air cooling isn't able to keep noise down while overclocking so...
randomly - Sunday, December 30, 2012 - link
I've watercooled a lot of PC's in my day and the substantial advantages in noise and cooling that water cooling once had have eroded a great deal. Modern high end heat pipe heatsinks do very well and the hassles and headaches of water cooling and the minimal improvements are just not worth the trouble of water cooling anymore. Any flexible tubing is going to slowly lose coolant because plastics and rubbers are porous, even if you don't have a catastrophic leak you still have the maintenance problems. Leaking pumps, failing pumps, leaking connections, leaking resevoirs, system running out of coolant through porosity losses in tubing, dead gpu cards while installing waterblocks etc. I've seen it all. After a dozen years with water cooling I can't see myself going back to it with the current air cooling options.Last upgrade I just used a Silverstone HE01 Heligon heatsink for the cpu, and an ASUS GTX680 triple slot vid card. The whole system is quieter than the previous water cooled setup, with no hassles, no leaks to worry about and no risk in killing my gpu installing a water cooling setup (done that before too). Everything is overclocked, the i7-3570k at 4300mhz, the GTX680 at 1230mhz and the system is barely audible even with heavy gaming. You might get a slight bump in overclocking potential with water cooling, but it'll be so small you won't be able to notice a difference is the machine.
Kidster3001 - Thursday, January 3, 2013 - link
Agreed. My first water cooling setup was in 2004 on Prescott. It needed it though :-) Bought everything from Dangerden.com and spent well over $500 for everything.I kept that case and setup alive for several years. The CPU, Northbridge and GPU were all cooled by it through a few rebuilds. When I upgraded to Conroe X6800 I moved to a new case and went back to air cooling. Other than the first month or so playing with a new rig, pushing OC to the limits, the water cooling wasn't really needed for 24x7 operation at high component speeds and low fan noise.
Once in a while I miss being able to run at 5+ GHz when I want to but it's not worth my time or the cost just for a few days a year of fun.
Flunk - Friday, December 28, 2012 - link
It seems like most users would be better served by one of Arctic's air coolers like the Extreme series or Twin Turbo 2 (I have 2 of these in my system). They're a lot cheaper, provide more than adequate cooling for huge GPU overclocks and if someone is hardcore enough to want more then custom watercooling makes a lot more sense.kmmatney - Saturday, December 29, 2012 - link
I'm wondering if the ability to overclock higher was mainly due to better VRM cooling, which is air cooled in the review.My experience with Arctic's air coolers has been great. I had a HD4890 that was unbearably loud with the stock cooler. Using an AC Accelero Rev 2 made it virtually silent (just a 5V quiet fan on the heatsink), cooler, and allowed me to overclock higher. For me, the key was keeping the VRMs cool, and I ended up buying a $10 Zalman VRM cooler which made all the difference. So I'm not sure the GPU cooling was waht allowed the card to overclock higher - I think it may be the better VRM cooling.
Dustin Sklavos - Saturday, December 29, 2012 - link
The thought had occurred to me as well, but either way, the GTX 680 was able to get a bit more headroom.JlHADJOE - Sunday, December 30, 2012 - link
I'm guessing a combination of both.The GK104s throttle down their clocks after hitting certain thermal thresholds, the first of which is at 70C. So even with VRM cooling in place, if thecard hits 70C then it wouldn't have clocked as high as it did with the liquid cooler.
londiste - Sunday, December 30, 2012 - link
there is a very simple difference between hybrid and extreme/twinturbo coolers. with hybrid it is very simple to get the heat out of the case (even compared to reference cooler), with extreme/twinturbo... not so much.not everyone is boasting a case with 5+ to keep the air moving quickly in and out at all times.
scaramoosh - Friday, December 28, 2012 - link
It looks stupid and with an SLI system you're gonna be struggling.These companies need to make an all in one modable system for noobs who don't want to invest time in to learning what parts they need to buy. I think that is the main problem to why people don't invest in water cooling, like where do you start? They buy this stuff just because it is easy.
CK804 - Saturday, December 29, 2012 - link
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