[nextpage title=”Introduction”]
Today we tested the Icy Vision VGA cooler from Gelid. It has five heatpipes and two 92-mm fans. Let’s se if it performs well.
In Figure 1, you can see the Icy Vision box, a plastic blister package which allows you to see its blue fans.
In Figure 2, you can see the accessories that come with the cooler: manual, memory heatsinks, heatsink for the voltage regulator transistors, power adapter, thermal grease, case sticker, and installation hardware.
In Figure 3, you can check the cooler itself. It is made of two independent heatsinks with aluminum fins, each one with a 92-mm fan.
Figure 3: The Gelid Icy Vision
[nextpage title=”The Icy Vision”]
In Figure 4, you can see the top of the cooler. The blades of the fans have tips that are thicker than the rest of their body.
As you can see in Figure 5, the two heatsinks are independent from each other.
In Figure 6, you can see one of the sides of the cooler, where there are only two heatpipes connecting the heatsink to the base.
In Figure 7, you see other side of the cooler. This heatsink has three heatpipes.
In Figure 8, you can see the base of the cooler. Note the position of the heatpipes: three of them connect the base to one heatsink, and two are connecting the base to the second heatsink. Some fins of this heatsink are also directly connected to the base. Note that the cable has a four-pin connector, so you can connect it directly on your video card. The product comes with an adapter that allows you to connect it to a three-pin header on your motherboard or directly to a standard peripheral power connector of your power supply.
In Figure 9, you can see the plate where you attach the screws that hold the cooler in place. There are four possible positions for the screws, so the cooler is compatible with a large number of video cards.
[nextpage title=”Installation on a GeForce GTS 250″]
In order to test the Icy Vision, we installed it on our Zotac GeForce GTS 250, which you can check in Figure 10 with its stock cooler.
In Figure 11, you can see the nuts that hold the cooler placed on the solder side of our video card. The cooler is heavy, and the addition of a backplate could help to hold the cooler without forcing the board. Note how one of the screws from our sample came with no thread, so we could only use three nuts to install the Icy Vision.
In Figure 12, you can see the Icy Vision installed on our GeForce GTS 250. As in other tests with the same board, we didn’t install the heatsinks on the memory chips and on the voltage regulator transistors.
Figure 12: Installed on our VGA
[nextpage title=”Installation on a GeForce GTS 250 (Cont’d)”]
In Figures 13, 14, 15, and 16, you have a general view of the Gelid Icy Vision installed on our GeForce GTS 250. It is very important to note that this cooler will take two expansion slots of your case, meaning that your video card will use three expansion slots.
[nextpage title=”Our Tests”]
We ran some simple tes
ts to check the performance of the Gelid Icy Vision, measuring the GPU core temperature with the aid of the SpeedFan software, and sound pressure level (SPL) with a digital noise meter set 4" (10 cm) from the video card, with the GPU at full load running the folding@Home GPU client. For this measurement, we turned off the fans of the case and the CPU cooler, so they noise wouldn’t interfere. Please keep in mind that sound pressure level measurement is just for comparative purposes, because a precise measurement would have to be done in an acoustically insulated environment, which we don’t have.
We compared the results from the Gelid Icy Vision with some other coolers we tested recently, and with the VGA stock cooler. You can check the results in the table below.
Product | Noise | Room Temp. | Core Temp. | Temp. Diff. | Speed |
Stock Cooler | 61 dBA | 16 °C | 73 °C | 57 °C | – |
VF1000 LED (min.) | 44 dBA | 16 °C | 74 °C | 58 °C | 1400 rpm |
VF1000 LED (max.) | 51 dBA | 16 °C | 61 °C | 45 °C | 2600 rpm |
Scythe Musashi (min.) | 40 dBA | 16 °C | 65 °C | 49 °C | 850 rpm |
Scythe Musashi (max.) | 47 dBA | 16 °C | 58 °C | 42 °C | 1950 rpm |
VF3000A (min) | 47 dBA | 19 °C | 52 °C | 33 °C | 1500 rpm |
VF3000A (máx) | 57 dBA | 19 °C | 49 °C | 30 °C | 2800 rpm |
Arctic Cooling Accelero Twin Turbo Pro | 43 dBA | 15 °C | 50 °C | 35 °C | – |
Gelid Icy Vision | 54 dBA | 15 °C | 66 °C | 51 °C | 2050 rpm |
In the graph below, you can compare the temperature differences between the GPU core and the room. Remember that the lower the value, the better performance is.
The measured results show the Gelid Icy Vision has not a high performance, compared to the coolers we tested on this VGA.
[nextpage title=”Main Specifications”]
The main specifications for the Gelid Icy Vision VGA cooler include:
- Fan: Two 92 mm fans with nominal speed of 2000 rpm
- Base: Copper
- Heatpipes: Five copper heatpipes
- Heatsink: Aluminum fins connected to the heatpipes
- Dimensions: 3.7" x 8.5" x 9.9" (95 mm x 216 mm x 52 mm) (W x L x H)
- Weight: 16.4 oz (465 g)
- Extra features: Heatsinks for memory chips and VRM transistors
- More information: https://www.gelidsolutions.com
- MSRP in the US: USD 55.00
[nextpage title=”Conclusions”]
When we first saw the Gelid Icy Vision, we thought it would be a great performer, with its five heatpipes and nice-looking fans, but, unfortunately, the results showed a completely different reality.
The Icy Vision has a nice and very complete set of heatsinks for memory chips and voltage regulator transistors, and the installation is easy, but it is quite noisy and cooled our video card worst than other coolers on the same price range. So, if you are looking for a high-performance, quiet cooler for your VGA, you will be better off buying a different product.
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