Accelero X2, worth the effort?

I love my X1800XT..

but there's some characteristics built into its stock cooler thats so ugly that not even their mothers could love them..

Don't get me wrong, the stock cooler performs superbly at 100%. I get a lowly load temps that never get pass 70C... but I would have to be deaf to not notice its noise.. and if I were deaf, there's really no point for me to play games now as I'll be seriously disadvantaged.

Okay, back to the topic... I want something quiet.. I used to love Zalman VF700.. but I couldnt get my mind across its donut shaped VF900 cooler once I saw the real thing (building a system for a mate).. Its plain fugly IMO..

The acceleros looks alright, at least in the photo they do. However, I've heard terrible things about their memory thermal pads that are as sticky as sole glue and that they'll leave residues so sticky on the mem chips that it'll render them useless for newer ram sinks later just in case it fails..

Also, I have read around that its not that 'accelero'.. that being its not really any much better than a stock cooler at 50%..

I think you can still get VF700. But anyway, is your mate going to look inside the PC or just use it for everyday? If you are building a PC for him, I assume he's not much of an enthusiast, and will enjoy the peace and quiet of VF900 without any appearance issues.

No, infact hell no, there crap.

Even the V900 isn't sufficient. Either leave the stock cooler, or mod a CPU Cooler or somet. there is nothing wrong with the stock cooler at around 40-50% fan speed.

In this weather in the UK, it's to hot anyways.

I put a Thermalright V1 Ultra on my x1900xt with a couple of fans at 5V. It was definitely worth it, as it's now inaudible with temps a little lower than stock. By all accounts the Accelero performs about the same as my solution. I'd go for it myself but I value silence more than most.

hmn... but Ive heard the V1 Ultra can be an arse to install..

Yeah, don't do it hungover like I did.