Arctic Cooling Revision 4, ATI 1

[ChristopherP]

Postill's Extreme Reviews: Arctic Cooling - Revision 4 ATI 1​

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)

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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:

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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):

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The next stage was pretty simple, pop the cooler through the existing holes and tighten the retention clip on the underside. Much easier than i thought it would be!​

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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.

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And before anyone mentions it, yes i know i put it in the AGP slot by mistake! I later moved it down one to the PCI 1 position where it is meant to go.​

Here it is, all installed and raring to go!​

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You can see how close the fan comes to my hard drives. I found it very difficult to plug in the SATA cables and the 9800pro power cable and position them in a safe and secure position. You can also see that i had to move HDD 2 up a position in the bay, reducing the effectivness of my HDD cooling fan which is positioned behind them.​

Ok, so it's installed, lets cut to the chase...​

Benchmarking:​

I set my Memory and CPU back down to stock speeds - 2.8GHz and Cas 2. I went straight to Rage3D Tweak and increased the speed of the core to 420MHz and the Memory (not affected by the cooler) to 351MHz. I left MSN, Norton, Internet Explorer, Outlook, Intelli Type, Intelli Point etc etc open, and ran 3DMark 2003 on default settings with Direct3D set to optimal.​

I Thought a reasonable score under this environment would be about 5950 or there abouts. I was wrong:​

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I didn't think that that score was too shabby!​

Next i overclocked my CPU to 3.01GHz and dropped the Cas Latency to 2.5. I then overclocked the GPU core to 429MHz (Left Memory at 351MHz(, Closed open programs and ran 3DMark again:​

It achieved a reasonable score in my opinion:​

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At the moment, 429MHz is the highest i can achieve on the core, but once the Arctic Ceramique has completed its multi-phase process, i would hope I can increase those figures and bump up my 3DMark score yet again!​

Pros:​

Easy Installation​

Thermal Compound included (not the one i used)​

Well Packaged​

Works Well​

Immediatly evident performance increase​

Quiet​

Cons:​

Hard to open the package! You have to knife it open​

The cooler is perhaps a little TOO big - you MUST remove hard drives to install it (in most cases)​

No speed toggle switch on this version​

In total i would give this product a massive 8.5 out of 10 PostillMark2004 Points!​

 

[Ian]

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!

 

[Kye]

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

 

[ChristopherP]

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!

 

[Ian]

I'll change the images to thumbnails now

 

[ChristopherP]

Thankyou Sir

 

[Reefsmoka]

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 :/ .

 

[ChristopherP]

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

 

[floppybootstomp]

Nice review Chris

 

[ChristopherP]

Cheers Flops

 

[JonnySpam]

My complements on a great review chris, i'm still debating as to replace the arctic cooler rev.3 with a rev.4 on my radeon 9800 pro. But seeing from your excellent pics i can immediately find one problem. I've stuck zalman heatsinks onto the vga ram and i can see that the cooler won't sit on it properly, the rev.3 fan is raised further off the board than the rev.4 Saying that when comparing them to your test figures, acheiving (462/368) (core/mem) i shouldn't grumble really, what can i say i'm power hungry

 

[ChristopherP]

After looking at other peoples reviews on the same cooler that i have, i have reason to believe i shoule be able to gain higher scores.

BUT

It may be because these people have the R360 (same as XT) core - i have only the R350

Maybe i will refit and, and also use AS5 and not so much of it over the core.

hmm...

Oh and thanks for the compliments - much appreciated

 

[drandy]

i like it-i wanna blue one!

hey chris,your review has inspired me to reach into my pocket! i'm looking to buy one of these meaty coolers- are they released yet? i didn't see it on the arctic cooling website.

 

[ChristopherP]

www.overclockers.co.uk have them

Good luck

Chrsis

 

[drandy]

it looks like the latest revision for the arctic cooling ati1 is the rev.2 not the rev.4... at least according to overclockers.co.uk and the arctic cooling website. it looks like you used more than a "grain of rice" of ceramique- is this necesary to ensure thermal contact due to the elevation provided by the metal collar around the GPU? a sound review though, and i'm definately getting one!

 

[ChristopherP]

I got the one that i read elsewhere was the best... be sure to get the one thats compatible with YOUR specific card... they arent just able to be fixed to any random card... they have to be supported.

I covered the entire chip with a thin layer of stuff...whether that was the right thing to do or not i dont know... my car still works

 

[drandy]

nice one.you'd think that they'd make it easied for me to give them my money! thanks for your help.

 

[Cache-man]

Nice review Chris, and the pics are good quality and explanatory too.

Hope to see some more reviews when you get the time.

 

[ChristopherP]

Cheers

Havent really had much around to review lately i mean im running a car now so computer expenditure now down to zero... Unless admin would like to send me some stuff, i fear it will be quiet for a while yet too unfortunatly.

Ah well.

Well see

Chris