Arctic Cooling Accelero X1

Arctic Cooling has had a great track record with us here at Techgage. Recently, I took a look at their nV 5 Rev. 3 Silencer which I used on an eVGA 7800GT card. It cut over 7°C off the max load that I had with the stock cooler, which is a nice chunk. Since then, AC has released a new GPU cooler for top end ATI and NVIDIA cards, called the Accelero X1 and X2, respectively. Luckily, I had a card lying around that desperately needed cooling help.

The Accelero arrived in a clear blister pack that’s easy to open. They don’t use staples or glue to seal the package shut, but its still sealed well enough that it won’t pop open by accident. I would love to see more companies package their products like this. Opening a new product shouldn’t be a chore. As you can see by looking at the cooler, it looks very different than anything from their Silencer lineup. One of the main goals of the product is to offer a quiet solution. Because the fan is quieter, the heatsink is larger, hence the larger casing.

A black plastic casing is what protects the heatsink, but it can be opened if for some reason you needed it to be. The plastic is simply two manufactured pieces clipped together. Looking underneath the product, you can see a row of thin fins. The entire product as a whole is 3cm high. At first I believed the Accelero to be higher than the nV5 Rev. 3, but it’s actually 1mm less. The height of the product is 12 CM though, and that is pretty long in terms of GPU coolers.

• Heat Sink: 152(L) x 90(W) x 30(H) mm
• Fan: 141(L) x 120(W) x 28(H) mm
• Overall Dimensions: 152(L) x 120(W) x 30(H) mm
• Rated Fan Speed: 500 – 2000 RPM
• Power Consumption: 0.13 Amp.
• Air Flow: 9.82 CFM / 16.7 m3/h
• Weight: 262 g
• Noise Level: 0.4 Sone
• Thermal Resistance: 0.39°C/Watt
• Thermal Interface Material: Pre-applied MX-1 Paste
• Warranty: 6 Years

The fan is quite similar to the nV5 Rev. 3s, but it’s technically half as quiet, with a rating of 0.4 Sone. On the back of the unit is a very large silver memory heatsink, which effectively covers all eight memory chips on the front of the card. The copper base is pre-applied with the AC MX-1 paste, so grabbing my AS5 was not necessary. The paste is protected by a plastic cover which is removed before installation, unless you want your house to smell for days.

You will notice in the picture that there are three copper ‘stubs’ sticking out from one side of the cooler. These run along the inside of the cooler and pass heat along to the fins to help dissipate heat quickly.

The kit as a whole includes everything you need including screws, plastic washers and thermal pads designed by 3M. As with all Arctic Cooling products, it also includes a company sticker to affix to your tower.