Introduction

The Arctic Accelero Twin Turbo II is a video card cooler with five heatpipes and two 92 mm fans. Let’s test it and compare it with some of the best VGA coolers we have tested so far. Check it out!

As with most video card coolers from Arctic, the box of the Accelero Twin Turbo II is made out of a transparent plastic that allows you to see the entire cooler, as shown in Figure 1.

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Figure 1: Package

Figure 2 shows the accessory kit that comes with the Twin Turbo II: thermal adhesive, heatsinks for memory chips and voltage regulator transistors, power adapter, and installation hardware. The thermal adhesive comes in two small bags and must be mixed before applying.

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Figure 2: Accessories

Figure 3 displays the Twin Turbo II.

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Figure 3: The Twin Turbo II

This cooler is discussed in detail in the following pages.

The Accelero Twin Turbo II

Figure 4 illustrates the top of the cooler. The plastic frame where the fans are mounted covers the entire heatsink.

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Figure 4: Top view

Figure 5 reveals the front view of the cooler, where you can see a big sticker with the name of the cooler.

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Figure 5: Front view

The rear side of the cooler is shown in Figure 7. Here you can have a glimpse of the heatpipes.

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Figure 6: Rear view

In Figures 7 and 8, you can see the sides of the heatsink.

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Figure 7: Side view

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Figure 8: Side view

The Accelero Twin Turbo II (Cont’d)

Figure 9 shows the bottom of the heatsink, where the heatpipes and the base of the cooler are fully visible. The thermal compound comes preapplied on the copper base.

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Figure 9: Bottom view

In Figure 10, you can see the heatsink of the Twin Turbo II with the fans removed.

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Figure 10: Heatsink

Figure 11 reveals the inner side of the frame where the two 92 mm PWM fans are located. Notice that the fan cable has two connectors, being compatible with three- or four-pin connectors usually found on video cards. You can also use the adapter that comes with the cooler, connecting the fans directly to the power supply.

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Figure 11: Fans and frame

Installation

In order to run a performance test, we installed the Twin Turbo II on our Point of View GeForce GTX 460 video card. Figures 12 and 13 show the card with and without its stock cooler.

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Figure 12: GeForce GTX 460

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Figure 13: GeForce GTX 460 with the stock cooler removed

Thanks to the several threaded holes at the base of the cooler, the Twin Turbo II is compatible with most video cards. All you have to do is to glue (using two-sided glued washers) four small plastic spacers on the base of the cooler, put the cooler in place, and attach four screws.

There are two issues here. First, we really missed a backplate, which is used to distribute the force to the center of the video chip and prevent the board from bending. The second issue is about the plastic spacers. First, we installed the cooler with the spacers, according to the manual. When we tested the cooler this way, the results were horrible. After removing the cooler, we discovered that the spacers prevented the cooler from effectively touching the GPU heatspreader. Then, we reinstalled the cooler without the spacers, resulting in the cooler’s performance becoming much better.

Figure 14 reveals the Accelero Twin Turbo II installed on our GeForce GTX 460.

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Figure 14: Cooler installed

Installation (Cont’d)

Figure 15 shows the solder side of our GeForce GTX 460 with the Arctic Accelero Twin Turbo II installed.

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Figure 15: Solder side

Figures 16, 17, 18, and 19 show the four sides of the Accelero Twin Turbo II installed on our video card.

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Figure 16: Rear view

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Figure 17: Side view

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Figure 18: Side view

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Figure 19: Front view

How We Tested

We tested this VGA cooler with a Point of View GeForce GTX 460 card with 1 GB RAM. The GTX 460 GPU has a TDP of 160 W. In order to get 100% GPU usage, we ran the Folding@Home GPU client.

We compared the Arctic Accelero Twin Turbo II to the VGA stock cooler, the Gamer Storm Dracula installed with two Xigmatek XLF-F1453 fans (140 mm, 1,000 rpm), and to the Deepcool V6000 VGA cooler.

Room temperature measurements were taken with a digital thermometer. The core temperature was read with the SpeedFan program (available from the GPU thermal sensors). During the tests, the left panel of the case was closed.

The sound pressure level (SPL) was measured with a digital noise meter, with its sensor placed at the side of the case. We reduced the rotation of all the other fans so they wouldn’t interfere with the results. This measurement is only for comparison purposes, because a precise SPL measurement needs to be made inside an acoustically insulated room with no other noise sources, which isn’t the case here.

Hardware Configuration

• Processor: Core i5-2500K
• CPU Cooler: Thermaltake WATER2.0 Performer
• Motherboard: ASUS Maximus IV Extreme-Z
• Memory: 6 GB OCZ (DDR3-1600/PC3-12800), configured at 1,600 MHz and 8-8-8-18 timings
• Hard disk: Seagate Barracuda XT 2 TB
• Video card: Point of View GeForce GTX 460 1 GB
• Video resolution: 1920x1080
• Video monitor: Samsung SyncMaster P2470HN
• Power supply: Seventeam ST-550P-AM
• Case:  Cooler Master HAF 922

Operating System Configuration

• Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit SP1

Software Used

• SpeedFan
• Folding@Home GPU Client

Error Margin

We adopted a 2°C error margin, meaning temperature differences below 2°C are considered irrelevant.

Our Tests

The table below presents the results of our measurements. We repeated the same test on all coolers listed below. Each measurement was taken with the GPU at full load.

Cooler	Room Temp.	Noise	GPU Temp.	Temp. Diff.
GamerStorm Dracula	11 °C	47 dBA	45 °C	34 °C
Arctic Accelero Twin Turbo II	11 °C	41 dBA	54 °C	43 °C
Deepcool V6000	11 °C	50 dBA	57 °C	46 °C
Stock cooler	11 °C	58 dBA	85 °C	74 °C

In the graph below, you can see how many degrees Celsius hotter the GPU core is than the air outside the case. The lower this difference, the better is the performance of the cooler.

Main Specifications

The main specifications for the Arctic Accelero Twin Turbo II VGA cooler include:

• Application (ATI/AMD): Radeon 1300, 1550, 1600, 1650, 1800, 1900, 1950, 2600 XT, 3850, 3870, 4770, 4830, 4850, 4870, 4890, 5830, 5850, 5870, 6770, 6790, 6800, 6850, 6870, 6950, 6970, 7850, and 7870
• Application (NVIDIA): GeForce 6600, 6800, 7800, 7900, 7950, 8800, 9600, 9800, GT 130, GTS 150, GTS 240, GTS 250, GT 320, GT 330, GT 340, GTS 450, GTX 460, GTX 460 SE, GTX 465, GTX 470, GTX 480, GTX 550Ti, GTX 560, GTX 560 SE, GTX 560 Ti, GTX 570, GTX 580, GTX 640, GTX 670, and GTX 680
• Dimensions: 4.8 x 8.5 x 2.1 inches (122 x 217 x 53 mm) (W x L x H)
• Maximum TDP: 250 W
• Fins: Aluminum
• Base: Copper
• Heat-pipes: Five 6-mm copper heatpipes
• Fan: 2 x 92mm
• Nominal fan speed: 2000 rpm
• Fan air flow: NA
• Maximum power consumption: 2 x 1.8 W
• Nominal noise level: NA
• Weight: 1.06 lb (479 g)
• More information: http://www.arctic.ac
• Avarage price in the U.S.*: USD 60.00

* Researched at Newegg.com on the day we published this review.

Conclusions

The Arctic Accelero Twin Turbo II proved to be an extremely quiet video card cooler, providing excellent cooling performance at the same time. It is also very versatile on the power connection, as you can connect it to the power connector of your video card or to a standard peripheral power connector from your power supply.

The only real issue with the Twin Turbo II is the installation system. It doesn’t use a backplate, which is bad because the force is not distributed to the center of the video chip (GPU), and also because it can bend your video card. Worst of all, the use of the spacers suggested in the manual prevented the cooler from making a good contact to the chip. Maybe the manufacturer can solve those problems on a product revision.

Due to its good cooling performance with low noise level, we are giving the Arctic Accelero Twin Turbo II the Hardware Secrets Silver Award.