Review: arctic cooling accelero xtreme plus

Few companies manufacture effective solutions for cooling our graphics cards, which is almost always the hottest component due to the usual and poor heatsink as standard. Arctic Cooling is a prestigious refrigeration brand and in mid-2010 it designed the Accelero Xtreme Plus, with an efficiency of 250w.

Don't miss out on this promising review!

ARCTIC COOLING ACCELERO XTREME PLUS FEATURES:
Part Number:	DCACO-VG15G001-CS
Package dimensions:	29.2 x 11 x 6 cm
Heatsink Dimensions:	29 × 10.4 × 5.6 cm
Heatsink	5 heatpipes and 84 sheets.
Fans:	3 92mm fans
Dissipation Capacity:	250W
Fan speed:	900-2000 RPM (PWM)
Bearing:	Fluid Dynamic Bearing
Air stream:	81 CFM / 138 m3 / 4
Weight:	900 grams
Warranty:	6 years

As we can see in the characteristics, it is a heatsink studied down to the last detail. With a dissipation power of 250W thanks to the three fans that it incorporates of 9.2 cm and its robustness. This last point is an aspect that can be problematic in the installation of some boxes, because it measures 29 cm long. The improvements that we have appreciated to its predecessor (Accelero Xtreme) is the compatibility with the new platforms of Nvidia (Fermi) and ATI (Cayman):

COMPATIBILITY:
NVIDIA SERIES:	HD 6970, 6950, 6870, 5870, 5830, 4890, 4870, 4850, 4830, 3870, 3850
ATI SERIES:	GTX 580, 570, 560Ti, 560, 550Ti, 480, 470, 465, 460SE, 460, 285, 280, 275, 260+, 260, GTS 250, 9800GTX +, 9800GTX

With this extensive compatibility it makes it an attractive and reusable product in the event of possible updates, which most gadgets will surely appreciate. But the heatsinks and anchors for each chip do not come in the main package and must be purchased individually. In order not to get too involved with which VR00x to buy, below we have prepared a compatibility list for each one:

COMPATIBLITY LIST FOR VR001 / VR002 / VR003 / VR004 / VR005
VR001	NVIDIA GeForce 9800GTX +, 9800GTX AMD Radeon HD 6970, 6950, 6870, 5870, 5830, 4890, 4870, 4850, 4830, 3870, 3850
VR002	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285, 280, 275, 260+, 260
VR003	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470, 465
VR004	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580, 570, 480
VR005	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560Ti, 550Ti, 560, 460SE, 460

And to conclude one of the aspects that many consumers look at in detail is the guarantee that each manufacturer offers us. And as always Arctic responds for 6 years.

The packaging is a well encapsulated transparent blister pack, which cushions against any shock. Let's see its front and rear:

When we open the blister we find a cable with two 12v and 6v resistors with molex output (useful when the PWM cable does not reach the connector of the graphics card), 4 screws, 4 washers, instructions manual and the heatsink. As we can see in the image, it has 3 9.2 cm fans and its design plays with the contrast of black and white.

In this image we can see the back of the heatsink. We can appreciate the 5 copper heatpipes, 84 sheets and the MX thermal paste pre-applied at the base of the heatsink:

As we have previously commented, VRMs are purchased separately. Professional review purchased four of the 5 VRs they sell for the Accelero Xtreme PLus:

VR001:

VR003:

VR004:

VR005:

The installation as we have commented is simple. First we remove the reference heatsink and we will find the pcb of the graph:

It is time to remove the thermal pads from the memories and the VReg, we will clean the thermal paste of the chipset with alcohol or some cleaning kit (Arctic or Phobya). When everything is clean, we will install the heatsinks in the memories and the VReg. With a drop of the glue and we will leave it for an hour (mandatory). We must have the following result:

Very carefully we install the heatsink and very carefully we go to the back of the graphic. In it we must install the 4 screws and washers the heatsink to the PCB of the card.

And with this we finish the assembly, the end result is this:

TESTING BENCH
Processor:	Intel 2600k
Base plate:	Asus P8P67 Deluxe
Memory:	G.Skill Sniper CL9 2 x 4GB
Heatsink	Prolimatech Genesis
HDD	120GB Vertex II SSD
Graphic card	Sapphire HD 6950 2GB
Box:	Lancool Pk62

We wanted to measure the temperature of the Accelero Xtreme Plus with the best graphics card we had at the moment, the 2GB Sapphire HD 6950.

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We will stress our to the graphics card with Furmark 1920 × 1080 for 20 minutes, which we consider to be long enough to evaluate the effectiveness of the heatsink. We have also added a profile on the fans thanks to MSI Afterburner. As we can see in the following images and graphics:

The difference in idle is 6ºC, but the great difference can be seen when the chipset is fully loaded, which is grateful for the 25ºC difference. We cannot forget that the sound of the card has dropped considerably. We must take into account that the ambient temperature in our laboratory was 29ºC.

In this analysis we have verified the effectiveness of the heatsink gaining up to 25º C of difference with the reference model. In addition to extending the life of the card, thanks to the dissipation of the phases and memories with the VR001 kit from Arctic Cooling. We have also seen that its installation is very simple with a mandatory drying time of 1 hour. We must also not forget that it is a triple slot heatsink, and given the possibility of an SLI / CF we must have a board with a good layout, and we should not worry about the quality of the thermal paste. Because it has one of the best on the market pre-applied, the Arctic MX-4. It is very important to remember that the installation of these heatsinks can void the warranty of our graphics card. Except in cases where the manufacturer authorizes the manipulation of the heatsink, as in the case of EVGA, to conclude the analysis we leave you with our table of advantages and disadvantages:

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ EXCELLENT PERFORMANCE	- THE VR00x DOES NOT COME SERIAL
+ QUALITY IN ALL ITS COMPONENTS
+ QUALITY THERMAL PASTA
+ YOU CAN CONSIDER A BE QUIET HEATSINK
+ EASY INSTALLATION
+ 6 YEARS WARRANTY

The Professional Review team will award you a well deserved gold medal: