The install...
First of all, I obviously had to get rid of the old heatsink/fan combo.
Here's my PowerColour 4870x2 sat in my case (Lian Li PC-A70B). That's right, I'm not a cable tidying freak.
Again for comparison purposes, this is a photo demonstrating the clearance between the PowerColour's stock shroudy bits, and my soundcard.
Here's the new stuff, all unpacked. I was quite surprised with the packaging, it's basically the cooler sat on top of the other bits, wrapped in a plastic shell.
Most minimalist/eco-friendly.
We've got here the cooler (obviously), 2 heatsinks, 2 likkle screws and an AC badgey (yay?), a buggerload of thermal pads of varying sizes, 1 6pin extension, and 1 6pin->8pin extension/convertor.
Due to the design of the heatsink it is near impossible (I've not actually tried it but it looks pretty tight) to get your standard PSU cables into the plugs, so AC are kind enough to provide pre-bent cables for you.
The contact side of the cooler in all it's metally glory. The blue bit you see is a protective plastic cover for the main plate as this will cover all of the RAM chips.
Here we have a lovely side shot of the cooler, showing off all the heatpipes and the mass of aluminium heatsink. You may notice that the main mounting plate is ever so slightly bent, but more on that later.
Fans. Three of them.
Anyway, onto the destruction of the old heatsink. Simply unscrewing everything you can from the back of the card lets the main shroud/heatsink assembly fall away. This you can bin, or store safely in case of warranty issues.
You will need the two X brackets from the stock cooler as the Accelero Extreme uses these too.
Next on the list is applying some of the thermal pads and attaching the smaller heatsinks. AC suggest you clean the tops of the PWM and other bits with a rubber, personally I just gave them a once over with a tissue then made sure there were no little bits left.
The thermal pads have two plastic covers on them, one is blue and flimsy, the other is clear and more rigid.
I would suggest removing the clear one first, then popping the pad onto the PWM/RAM/whatever, then once it's nice and secure, pry the blue cover off with a penknife (or if you're dexterous enough you can use your fingers).
Both the little heatsinks installed now. Oh, they screw in from the back through the stock backing plate holes. I would strongly advice putting one on, then screwing it, then putting the other on and screwing it. They have a habit of falling off otherwise.
Next came the tricky bit.
Aligning the main heatsink was peasy, just match up the holes and plonk it on. Also, make sure you plug in the fan cable BEFORE you start plonking it down. I forgot this and had to use a pair of long nosed pliers to ease it in.
The tricky bit concerns the X brackets on the back. As you will know, they have little black plastic spacers on the bottom of each arm of the X, to increase the distance between the bracket and the PCB, so forcing the heatsink on to the core, maximising the contact.
Unfortunately, because of the superior contact of the Accelero Extreme, you WILL NOT be able to get the brackets on whilst the little black spacers are attached.
I tried for damn near 2 hours to get the little screw to fit in the little hole, and the bugger just wasn't long enough.
This is where I bring up the slight bowing of the main plate, as mentioned briefly earlier. This did not help screwing the screws one bit.
Finally after much struggling, I decided to try removing 2 of the spaces from each bracket. HUZZAH! The buggers went in. Finally.
I was quite tempted to remove all of the little spacers, as I honestly don't think it needs them, but by that point I didn't care and just wanted to get the thing in my PC!
Here's the end result.
It's a bit of a tight fit now between the cooler and my soundcard, as you can see below. With this cooler, your card will take up 2.75 slots. Just right for me.
If you have a card in the next slot with bit screws, or other objects protruding from the back of it, you could have an issue.
I'm just popping off to play some games to get new temperature measurements.
Be back soon...
