Review: Arctic Cooling AC-S1 (Rev2) on an 3870

[MSIC]

I got a lovely 3870 a few months ago complete with stock heatsink / fan, which did the job but was pretty noisey given than everything else in my system is properly quiet.
If anyone tells you that the stock cooler is quiet, they don't have a 'quiet' system as i'd define it!

Swapping the the stock cooler for the AC-S1 (£15 from Scan) took about half an hour, trying to dig out the right sort of mini-screwdriver and going through a nervous few minutes pressing down really hard trying to screw the new heatsink in (and being worried about crushing the GPU core chip), but got there in the end. After a couple of false start reboots (blank screens, i was full of regret thinking i'd borked the whole job) it all worked well.

I now have again a properly quiet system, and putting my hand on the metal fins seems to indicate a much cooler temperature than i'd have imagined. My P180 case does seem to do a great job with airflow. I'm not so interested in overclocking the graphics card as it does what i want, but it's now quiet and stable, so i'm happy.

[Jay]

do you get memory and voltage regulator heatsinks with this?

Will it fit an 8800GT?

[MSIC]

do you get memory and voltage regulator heatsinks with this?

I think so yes, there were certainly a number of 1cm square headsinks with sticky tape underneath, but i didn't end up fitting any of them onto my 3870 since it already had a couple of large heatsinks covering the memory chips etc.
As for fitting an 8800GT, their website says that it does, but i guess these things always depend on good case airflow too.

I would also add that this thing is an absolute beast in it's size, and is by far the tallest thing in my case, apart from possibly my AC Freezer 64 CPU HSF.

[N1Andy]

Is this adaptable to add a fan(s) as well? Any idea how it compares to a Zalman 900?

[MSIC]

Well i used to have a Zalman VF700 on my old Geforce 7600GT, and i really liked it - temps were nice and low, and i couldn't hear it.
The purpose of the AC-S1 heatsink was never to break any overclocking records, although to answer the fan question, my understanding is that you can add these bad boys for a fiver:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=627856
They look like they'd take all of about 10 seconds to add, as opposed to the 30 minutes to get the heatsink on!
They look good, and perhaps i'll get some at some point, but i think it's a bit poncey calling them 'Turbo Modules'. They are just fans! Personally, i really preferred zero noise over improved cooling.

As for a comparison to the VF900, a quick google search gave me the ever reliable [H]ardOCP forum with this post:

I had a hard time installing this thing (Those plastic L + T addons are annoying as hell! Kudos to anyone who managed to install them), but the temperatures are quite pleasing.

Beforehand I had a Zalman VF-830 on my card (Factory installed):
Idle: 49-50C | Load: 65-67C
Switching to my old Zalman VF-900 didn't help so much:
Idle: 47-50C | Load: 67-72C
With the Accelero (And the turbo module):
Idle: 45-46C | Load: 55C

The load improvement is the most important to me, so I'm quite satisfied with it

This seems to be on an 8800GT, so i suppose the 'turbo modules' seem to be good.

The turbo modules themselves are reviewed here.

I would wholeheartedly recommend getting the AC-S1, and you can easily add the fans after if you feel that you need them. What case do you have?

[Faboo]

Do they fit the 4850 too?

[MSIC]

It's a funny thing you know - i did a quick google search, something that Faboo could have done himself quite easily, to get the answer.
And you know what - this thread is only the 2nd in the list of google's answers!
Anyway, yes, for a 4850 it's a go-er.

[OilSheikh]

Originally Posted by Jay

do you get memory and voltage regulator heatsinks with this?

Will it fit an 8800GT?

I have this on my DELL 8800GT. I don't use the Turbo module , they produce a bit of noise obviously as they are fans spinning around. I do agree that it is tricky to install. It took me 30 mins.

I have no case fans either. Just the PSU fan and the Thermaltake Blu-Orb II cpu fan.

My younger brother plays Rappelz on it for hours. Have not had any problems. ( I play PS3 these days )