[nextpage title=”Introduction”]
This time we are testing a VGA cooler, the Arctic Cooling Accelero Twin Turbo Pro, which comes with a big heatsink, four heatpipes, and two 92 mm fans. Check it out!
In Figure 1, you can see the Twin Turbo Pro box, actually a thin plastic blister package that is practically the same size of the cooler.
Figure 1: Box
In Figure 2, you can see the accessories that come with the cooler: manual, memory heatsinks, VRM transistor heatsink, power adapter, and installation hardware.
Figure 2: Accessories
In Figure 3, you can check the cooler itself. It consists of a large heatsink with aluminum fins, four heatpipes, and two 92-mm fans.
Figure 3: The Accelero Twin Turbo Pro
[nextpage title=”The Accelero Twin Turbo Pro”]
In Figure 4, you can see the top of the cooler, with a black plastic frame that holds the two white fans.
Figure 4: Top view
As you can see in Figure 5, the cooler is tall, taking not one, but two adjacent slots, making the video card to use three expansion slots.
Figure 5: Front view
In Figure 6, you can see the side of the cooler.
Figure 6: Side view
In Figure 7, you see the upper side of the cooler. Note that the four heatpipes are well distributed in the heatsink.
Figure 7: Upper view
In Figure 8, you can see the base of the cooler, that comes with pre-applied thermal compound. There are two possible positions where you can attach the screws that hold the cooler on the video card. The fans are connected to the same power cable, and this cable has two connectors, one with three and one with four pins, so you can connect it directly to your video card. If your VGA has PWM fan speed control, this cooler will be able to take advantage of it.
Figure 8: Base
In Figure 9, you can see the power adapter that comes with the cooler, allowing you to connect the fans directly to your power supply. Using this connector, you have the choice to power the coolers fans with 12 V or 7 V. A pity Arctic Cooling didn’t include an adapter that alows you to connect this cooler to your motherboard or to a fan controller.
Figure 9: Power adapter
[nextpage title=”Installation on a GeForce GTS 250″]
In order to test the Accelero Twin Turbo Pro, we installed it on our Zotac GeForce GTS 250, which you can check in Figure 10 with its stock cooler.
Figure 10: GeForce GTS 250
According to the manufacturer, the Twin Turbo Pro is compatible with GeForce GTS 250, but we had an incompatibility issue. The metal plate that is screwed to the chassis and came with our GeForce GTX 250 has a metal tab that interfered with the cooler. We were lucky to have another plate (that comes with another VGA cooler) and, after replacing it, we could install the cooler on our VGA. In Figure 11, you can see the standard plate that came with our GeForce GTS 250 and the smaller one (shown installed on our video card).
Figure 11: Plates
In Figure 12, you can see the Accelero Twin Turbo Pro installed on our VGA. We didn’t install the heatsinks on the memory chips and on the VRM 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 Accelero Twin Turbo Pro installed on our GeForce GTS 250. As already explained, this cooler takes two expansion slots, making the video card to use three expansion slots of the case.
Figure 13: Bottom view
Figure 14: Side view
Figure 15: Upper view
Figure 16: Side view
[nextpage title=”Our Tests”]
We ran some simple tests to check the performance of the Arctic Cooling Accelero Twin Turbo Pro, 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 Arctic Cooling Accelero Twin Turbo Pro 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 | – |
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 Arctic Cooling Accelero Twin Turbo Pro has a very good cooling performance, with a very low noise level.
[nextpage title=”Main Specifications”]
The main specifications for the Arctic Cooling Accelero Twin Turbo Pro VGA cooler include:
- Fan: Two 92-mm fans with nominal speed of 2000 rpm
- Base: Copper
- Heatpipes: Four copper heatpipes
- Heatsink: Aluminum fins connected to the heatpipes
- Dimensions: 4.5" x 8.4" x 1.9" (115 mm x 213 mm x 49 mm) (W x L x H)
- Weight: 15.7 oz (446 g)
- Extra features: Heatsinks for memory chips and VRM transistors
- More information: https://www.arctic.ac
- Average price in the US*: USD 60.00
* Researched at Amazon.com on the day we published this review.
[nextpage title=”Conclusions”]
Our first impression about the Arctic Cooling Accelero Twin Turbo Pro was not good. The packaging is fragile and looks cheap. We also didn’t like the installation method (altought it is simple), and we needed to change our VGA rear plate. It uses only four small screws to hold the cooler in place, and we were not so confident that this mechanism would hold the cooler in place; a backplate would make this installation more reliable.
When in use, however, things changed. The Accelero Twin Turbo Pro (Arctic Cooling could use a shorter name for this product) is very quiet and kept our GPU really cool. And these are the points that matter, don’t you think?
Due to its great cooling performance and whispering low noise level, Arctic Cooling Accelero Twin Turbo Pro receives the Hardware Secrets Silver Award.
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