Review: Arctic Cooling Accelero Hybrid And AMD HD 290

vUNREALv · 30 Nov 2013 at 23:23

Ahh, thanks for the info.

Nelly · 9 Dec 2013 at 19:53

Hey almighty15 interesting post, what was the maximum clock you got on the R290X card using the Arctic Cooling Accelero Hybrid?

I might do this with 2 R290X in crossfire.

Are you now using the Arctic Cooling Accelero Hybrid on your GTX 780, did you try it?

LtMatt · 9 Dec 2013 at 20:18

Almighty what was that tweak you mentioned previously about adaptive multi sampling in CCC? In bf4 do you use enhance or over drive application settings?

atomic7431 · 11 Dec 2013 at 12:28

almighty15 hows the cooler working now you have had it a bit longer? seriously thinking about pulling the trigger on this now and using the heatsinks that come with the vga cooler, i know there is 4 short but seen elsewhere pics of how to get all the vram cooled using just those that comes with the cooler.

LtMatt · 11 Dec 2013 at 12:31

Almighty looks like you nailed this. Good job.

iron_monkey · 11 Dec 2013 at 14:35

atomic7431 said:
, i know there is 4 short but seen elsewhere pics of how to get all the vram cooled using just those that comes with the cooler.

Ello mate, you got a link to this? Im waiting on the alperfohn heatsinks to come back in stock but ocuk say its probably gonna be a few weeks. I cant find and good heatsinks anywhere and im itching to get this cooler fitted so i can get mining.

atomic7431 · 11 Dec 2013 at 17:23

no ive lost it because i didnt bookmark it and the 2 boys just turned me pc off and chrome wouldnt restore where i had left off ...... silly me.

Exsurgo · 11 Dec 2013 at 20:07

What thermal adhesive did you use for attaching the heat sinks? Any reason why you avoided thermal tape?

ICDP · 13 Dec 2013 at 12:10

Thanks for the fitting guide OP

I just flashed an R9 290 to a 290X and put one of these coolers on.

£392 for the card, Artctic Hybrid cooler, Akasa thermal tape and Aplenphon heatsinks. A cool, quiet R9 290X for a great price.

At full 156Mv offset, 100Mv VRAM 1230/1450 the core is 62c and the VRMs at 89-92c. At 100Mv 1170/1400 core the is at 54c and the VRMs at 78-81. Fan is unbelievably quiet even at 100%.

These temperatures are from Tomb Raider demo at 2560x1600 left running for around 20 minutes.

All in all an excellent cooler for the price and truly makes the R9 290/X cards shine. The best part is that the cooler is transferable so I look at the cooler as a long term investment even though it is expensive.

atomic7431 · 13 Dec 2013 at 13:09

ICDP said:
Thanks for the fitting guide OP

I just flashed an R9 290 to a 290X and put one of these coolers on.

£392 for the card, Artctic Hybrid cooler, Akasa thermal tape and Aplenphon heatsinks. A cool, quiet R9 290X for a great price.

At full 156Mv offset, 100Mv VRAM 1230/1450 the core is 62c and the VRMs at 89-92c. At 100Mv 1170/1400 core the is at 54c and the VRMs at 78-81. Fan is unbelievably quiet even at 100%.

These temperatures are from Tomb Raider demo at 2560x1600 left running for around 20 minutes.

All in all an excellent cooler for the price and truly makes the R9 290/X cards shine. The best part is that the cooler is transferable so I look at the cooler as a long term investment even though it is expensive.

what brand of card is that and did it unlock all the shaders etc?
what were your stock temps at the same clock speeds and running the same demo?
only ask as i keep umming and arrring about this cooler or whether to wait for an official non reference cooler...

ICDP · 13 Dec 2013 at 13:20

atomic7431 said:
what brand of card is that and did it unlock all the shaders etc?
what were your stock temps at the same clock speeds and running the same demo?
only ask as i keep umming and arrring about this cooler or whether to wait for an official non reference cooler...

The card was an XFX R9 290

With the stock cooler the GPU was unable to maintain 1150 as the card would throttle with the required +100Mv at any sensible fan speed.

For comparison at stock clocks and volts the card would reach 94c and the fan would reach 50%+ which was far too loud IMHO. VRM temperatures were mid 70s to low 80s. So the new setup give similar VRM temperatures as stock. The hybrid cooler puts direct airflow over VRM1 and it does a great job with the large Aplenphon VRM cooler. Though as the OP showed you need to cut a groove in the cooler shroud.

Another thing to bear in mind is the requirement to purchase extra heatsinks as there is not enough for all the RAM. Of course the RAM could get away without heatsinks IMHO.

I was apprehensive at first considering the cost and the usual VRM cooling problems with after market coolers. This mini review showed that their was nothing to worry about with the VRM cooling. As for cost, I also consoled myself with the fact that the cooler would be reusable with any future GPUs.

All in all I am very impressed with how cool and quiet it runs and VRM cooling is very good. Just set 100% fan speed and it is still quieter than a stock R9 290/X at 30% fan speed.

SimonKa · 13 Dec 2013 at 13:45

That's grand, makes me wanna try this before christmas.

How much did you pay in total? I see that the accelero hybrid price went up, might wait for an offer or something..#

Also, any issues with mounting? Anything to look out for?

ICDP · 13 Dec 2013 at 14:13

SimonKa said:
That's grand, makes me wanna try this before christmas.

How much did you pay in total? I see that the accelero hybrid price went up, might wait for an offer or something..#

Also, any issues with mounting? Anything to look out for?

Full cost for everything was £392.

£3 for the Akasa thermal pad
£11 for the Alpenphon heatsink pack. I feel you could do without this if you use the VRM heatinks from the Hybrid cooler and leave the RAM with no heatsinks. Though for the price I felt it was worth it.
£75 for the Arctic Hybrid cooler.

I bought the R9 290 elsewhere as OCUK are only selling non-flashable R9 290s unless you pay a hefty premium. If you want a guaranteed flashable card and a warranty it might be worth it for you.

I took a few hours to thoroughly read the instructions, do some test fitting and the final installation. Half of that time was taken up making room for the radiator in my Antec 902 front panel. I had to remove one of the 5.25 - 3.5 inch drive bays. The radiator was secured using cable ties. It is in a push, push pull config to aid cooling.

1x push pulling air in from the front panel. Pre mounted with the Antec 902 case.

1x push fan and 1x pull mounted to the Hybrid radiator. one on each side.

When mounting the cooler the top 4 (furthest from PCI connector) RAM chips must use the short RAM heatsinks.
The lowest RAM chip just above the PCI-E is not able to take a RAM heatsink at all.
Use the 3.5mm spacers between the PCB and the GPU cooler, the others are too long or too short.

I used Akasa thermal tape to mount the RAM heatsinks and the large Alpenphon VRM heatsink. The large VRM heatisnk screw holes do not line up so I used thin cable ties to secure the VRM sink as there is enough gap to pass them through the half visible screw holes. It is very secure using this method and is held tight to the VRMs to aid cooling.

Other than that it was a fairly simple operation.

Baboonanza · 13 Dec 2013 at 14:36

It's a shame OcUK have sold out of the Alpenfohn chip coolers. They appear to be the only place selling them too.

Does anyone know of any suitable alternative? I really only need some VRM heatsinks.

atomic7431 · 13 Dec 2013 at 16:13

Thanks for the input much appreciated.

rounj02 · 13 Dec 2013 at 16:30

Hi guys, i am sure this has been covered but is the more than one version of the Arctic Accelero Hybrid ? If so which was the one used on this 290?

I asked OC'ers and they said speak to Arctic about it fitting.

Cheers
James

iron_monkey · 13 Dec 2013 at 17:27

There is 2 different hybrid coolers i believe. The op says he didnt need any spacers and ICDP says he did. maybe he has a different model number. I think i read they made one for a specific card which would need spacers. Can you guys post your model numbers so we can see.

ICDP · 13 Dec 2013 at 18:48

iron_monkey said:
There is 2 different hybrid coolers i believe. The op says he didnt need any spacers and ICDP says he did. maybe he has a different model number. I think i read they made one for a specific card which would need spacers. Can you guys post your model numbers so we can see.

The only different models are specific to 79x0 cards. I used the spacers to prevent excessive PCB warping when I tightened the screws on the mounting bracket. Of course this does not mean there will be any such wapring but I had the spacers so I used them.

iron_monkey · 13 Dec 2013 at 19:15

I see, i remember reading some other posts where people were also using the spacers but were cutting them to fit better but i cant remember the details. So you think the 3.5mm are a good fit?
Cheers

ICDP · 13 Dec 2013 at 19:24

iron_monkey said:
I see, i remember reading some other posts where people were also using the spacers but were cutting them to fit better but i cant remember the details. So you think the 3.5mm are a good fit?
Cheers

I set the various spacers beside the raised metal GPU surround and the 3.5mm ones were about 1mm higher. They are only rubber so they will compress and do not hinder contact between the cooler and the GPU. My core temps have not gone above 62c even with 100Mc voltage offset.

The instructions state to use the 3.5mm spacers on the back of the card between the mounting bracket and the PCB. Though I used the 4mm ones for there instead.

Some further info on temperatures. After a 25+ minute continuous Valley benchmark loop at 1170/1250 with +100Mv offset. I dropped the RAM overclock because I was getting black screens at anything over 1350 VRAM clock.

GPU core temp: 57-58c
VRM1: 84-85c
VRM2: 67-68c

After 15 or so minutes these temperatures were fluctuating 1c indicating they would not likely rise any further. There was no throttling of the core clock at all.