Date: September 24th, 2008
Article by: Joe Anderson (Hardware Reviewer)
Edited by: Nathan Glentworth (Owner / Head Editor)
Product was submitted by: Arctic Cooling <--SHOP FOR VGA COOLER HERE
CORPORATE PROFILE
ARCTIC COOLING is a leader in creating thermal cooling solutions for personal computer systems that enable CPU (Central Processing Unit), GPU (Graphic Processing Unit) and PC case cooling whilst reducing the noise level. Increased heat generated by modern computer systems has overwhelmed most existing cooler manufacturers in their efforts to keep pace with the demands in terms of noise level and cooling. The noise pollution caused by today's IT systems has increased, severely affecting productivity in open office environments. ARCTIC COOLING has been working closely with globally recognized companies such as ASUS, Sapphire, Powercolor and ATI. Through these partnerships ARCTIC COOLING has been able to adapt to the changing market requirements and has quickly developed the optimal solutions. ARCTIC COOLING combines the Swiss art of engineering to realize innovative cooling ideas. Thanks to the low labor cost in Asia, ARCTIC COOLING has consistently produced innovative solutions which lead the market in price / performance. Cooling solutions are created from the demand of our customers. Due to the continuous product development at ARCTIC COOLING the demands of end-users will always be satisfied. As a result of the head-start ARCTIC COOLING has in knowing end-user's requirements, manufacturing possibilities and ARCTIC COOLING's strong R&D, ARCTIC's products will continue to be market leaders in cooling solutions and provide assemblers, computer hardware distributors and IT-technicians with innovative, virtually silent, cost-effective cooling solutions for CPU, GPU and PC-case worldwide. .
PRODUCT INTRODUCTION
While CPU temperatures have been on the decline recently, graphics processors seem to be taking the opposite course. For the most part, the OEM coolers on these newer graphics cards are loud and their cooling performance can be described as adequate at best. Many PC enthusiasts, especially gamers, look to the aftermarket for improved VGA cooling, while the silent PC crowd is looking for, well, silence. Arctic Cooling has been a big player in VGA cooling for some time, and their Accelero series of coolers have been very popular due to great performance and affordability. The new Accelero S1 (Rev.2) brings silence to the table with its passive, four-heatpipe design. Let's try it on and see how it fits.
SMALL HEATPIPE TECHNOLOGY TUTORIAL
I am going to keep this as simple as possible to get the basic premise across to all of the Tweaknews readers. Please don't be insulted if this is too simple for your education level. I have to cater my writing to the least technical reader looking for information.
The basic idea behind heatpipe technology is really simple.
1.) With a tube containing a compressed fluid/gas, the fluid comes in contact with the heat source (the CPU core, in this case) which heats up the volatile fluid and turns it into a gas. The energy is absorbed in the gas production process and is ready for transportation.
2.) The heated gas now travels along the inner portion of the tube where it comes to the cooling portion of the heatsink in this example.
3.) The radiator, with or without a fan, will cool the liquid and transfer the energy (AKA heat) to the radiator to be dispersed to the surrounding air. With the heat removed, the vapor quickly condenses back to a fluid and runs along the inside surface of the pipe back down to the bottom where the process can be started all over again.
For another example, you can consider a boiling pot of water with a glass lid as a very basic heatpipe. When the water boils, the water vapor comes in contact with the cooler glass pot lid which forces the vapor to condense back to water where it dribbles back down the inside of the lid back into the pot.
