Yesterday morning i recieved my shiny new Arctic Cooler in the post. Today i decided to fit it

Test Rig:
Abit IC7-G Canterwood Socket 478 Motherboard
Intel P4c 2.8GHz
Thermalright SP-94 with 80mm Case Fan
512mb (2x256) OCZ PC4200 DDR533 Memory in Dual Channel
2x Samsung Spinpoint 80Gb SATA 7200rpm 8mb Hard Drives in RAID0
Sapphire Atlantis Radeon 9800pro 128mb (stock speeds @ 378mhz core 337mhz mem)
Arctic Cooling Revision 4 ATI 1

Review

Here it is! (Click on all pictured to see them big)




First impressions were "woah it's huge" and more dissapointingly "how the hell do you get this out of the packet?!"

See how big it is compared to the card itself:



Installation was simple enough, just had to heat up the old heatsink and pinch the retention clips so that it came free, after pulling out the fan lead.

This is what the core looked like (after rubbing off remaining thermal pad and applying thin layer of new Arctic Ceramique thermal compound (pretty much same as AS5 but half the price):





The final step was to install the new PCI bracket that acts as an exhaust port for the plastic duct. This saves any hot air from being circulated round the case.

That is an excellent first review Christoper! You have obviously taken some time to do this review and got some good photos of the process!

Would you say it is quieter than the normal graphics card fan, as I have the same card and it can be pretty loud!

wouldnt it restrict airflow of the case? i mean, that ickle gap between the hard disk and the huge Arctic Cooler?

Thanks Ian

I think educating people of my experiences is worth 40 minutes of time!

It is not loud at all as it happens - proabably quieter. a 72mm fan at a lower RPM can generate MUCH more airflow than a 35mm fan at extreme RPM's...

The airflow is not really restriced as any hot air from under the cooler would be sucked through the ducting and chucked out the back - also there is some room for air to circulate between the card and the side door.

Ian could you possibly try and make the photos smaller please? i hyperlinked them so that you just click on them to see the larger versions - i took into account the people that would view this on a dial up connection!

I'll change the images to thumbnails now

Thankyou Sir

Hey dude good reveiw

I was just wondering what the cable dangling freely on this picture is for? The one that looks to be attached to the cooler, but not the card.

My silencer (the older one) only come with the one that connected to the card :/ .

it has two connectors (i guess some cards have different types of plugs) i plugged in the one that fitted and left the other alone.

Cheers man

Nice review Chris

Cheers Flops