Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer REV .2 Review

Former staff writer - March 5, 2004

Testing
We will be comparing the VGA silencer against another low noise VGA cooler the Zalman ZM80A-HP. AS5 thermal compound was used on both coolers. All testing was done in a Chieftec server tower with an 80mm fan on the side panel blowing directly over the AGP card. For temperature and overclocking results 3DMark03 was run looped for 30 minutes before temperatures were recorded. Lacking any hardware monitoring features I placed a thermal probe on the PCB behind the GPU.

Test System

AMD 2500+ @ 3200+

Abit NF7-S

1X512 HyperX PC3500

ATI 9800Pro

With the fan on high the VGA silencer showed some impressive results. On the lowest setting we see the Zalman having slightly better results over the VGA silencer.

I really wasn�t expecting an increase in overclocked speeds, but on the high setting the VGA silencer was free of any artifacts in 3Dmark03 Mother Nature test at 418 MHz GPU. On low I was getting some checker boarding and snow in Mother Nature. The maximum for both the Zalman and VGA silencer on low was 411 MHZ GPU.

Conclusion

Short of water cooling this has to be the best VGA cooler on the market for ATI cards. The ability to exhaust the hot air from the GPU to the outside of the case is a first for ATI based cards. Even on the highest setting the fan still remained relatively quiet, and on low it was nearly inaudible. Overclocking results were surprising as I wasn�t expecting any increase in speed. The VGA Silencer is very competitively priced compared to the competition, and if your looking to upgrade from the stock ATI cooler I highly suggest you look at the VGA silencer.

Pros