O-Sense
INTRODUCTION
When AIO Liquid CPU Coolers made their debut several years ago the entire PC community welcomed them with open hands not only because of their competitive prices (always compared to custom kits) but also because of their extremely easy installation and lack of need for filling them with liquid every once in a while. Back then i too was quite excited with my first encounter with one such solution (manufactured by CoolIT if i recall correctly) but at the same time i was somewhat curious as to why manufacturers didn't choose to also implement the same hardware for use with graphics cards since all it would obviously offer much better cooling while at the same time it would reduce the weight of the card and all that just by using a different mounting system. Unfortunately however that took a long time to happen and so it wasn't until last year that ARCTIC released the Accelero Hybrid Air & Liquid Combined Cooling Solution which offered superior cooling levels and is still considered as the best AIO GPU Cooler one can find in the market. Well ARCTIC seems to think that there's always room for improvement and so a couple of weeks ago they introduced the Accelero Hybrid II-120 Air/Liquid Cooler which we have here with us today.
The increasing heat emission of modern CPUs and graphics cards has gone beyond the capability of most manufacturers to design powerful enough yet quiet coolers. An increasing noise level was the result, which had a negative impact on productivity. A quiet computer is the basis for pleasant working conditions. ARCTIC initiated the trend towards quiet cooling systems for desktop PCs in 2001 and has given distinction to it ever since. Today ARCTIC is one of the leading manufacturers in computer cooling and has acquired profound knowhow in consumer electronics. ARCTIC is a privately-owned company with its headquarters in Switzerland and offices in Hong Kong and the USA. ARCTIC contributed significantly to the development of computer cooling solutions, created a number of patented technologies leading to greater efficiency and remarkable noise reduction. Within the cooling industry ARCTIC is recognized for offering innovative solutions with a fair price tag. Our products are sold in over 45 countries across the globe. Up until 2009, ARCTIC COOLING focused solely on cooling solutions. In 2010, we became ARCTIC with the additional aim to provide a comprehensive set of innovative consumer electronics and peripherals. ARCTIC's long term goal is nothing less than being present in everybody's home. Our philosophy is still the same since the very beginning - offering consumers value-for-money, innovations at affordable prices.
The original Accelero Hybrid combined an 120mm AIO closed loop liquid cooler with two fans an 120mm one used to cool the radiator and an 80mm one used to cool the cards sensitive components (RAM/VR). However although active cooling is always a good thing when used on its own it may not be sufficient and that's the first thing that ARCTIC improved on the Hybrid II-120 model since this time over along with the 120mm AIO liquid cooler they also bundle a large heatsink which should offer much better cooling for both the RAM and the voltage regulators. Of course the ideal scenario would be for the people over at ARCTIC to marry active with passive cooling thus offering even better cooling but that would probably increase the price of the Accelero Hybrid II-120 quite a bit and i really doubt anyone would like that. Regardless the concept is one we've been waiting for too long to test so let's see what the Accelero Hybrid II-120 Air/Liquid Cooler can do.
SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES
PACKAGING AND CONTENTS
A large picture of the bundle is placed at the front right beneath the ARCTIC logo and the carbon free green logo.
The GPU compatibility list along with the specifications and a picture of the Hybrid II-120 is placed on the left side.
On the right side you can see some of the possible positions you can mound the radiator at (some cases like the 900D can have it on the sides).
Showcased at the rear of the box is the large heatsink along with two charts about the noise level and fan speeds.
The entire bundle is placed inside 3 pieces of cardboard which did a great job keeping it safe till it got here.
Inside the box ARCTIC has placed the radiator loop, 120mm fan, heatsink, card holder, thermal paste tube, protective film, thermal pads, installation instructions, software download paper and all the necessary screws required for mounting to NVIDIA and AMD cards.
THE HYBRID II-120
If we didn't know that this is actually a GPU Cooler we'd probably think that this is yet another 120mm AIO CPU Cooler like the KUHLER H2O 620/650 models by Antec.
The radiator is 25mm thick, 120mm wide and 150mm long.
As you can see the fins are in perfect condition.
We were surprised to see that the tubes are 420mm long making installation of the device very easy.
The pump has the ARCTIC logo at the top and is 70mm long, 70mm wide and 28mm thick.
Unfortunately unlike CPU AIO Liquid Coolers the tubes of the Accelero Hybrid II-120 are fixed on the pump.
The pump is powered by a two pin Molex power connector.
The 120mm PWM fan spins up to 1350RPM to produce 74CFM of airflow with 12dBA of noise (0.3sone).
ARCTIC provides a very large heatsink (218mm long, 98mm wide and 23mm thick) to cool the RAM and voltage regulators.
The copper waterblock is flat and comes without any kind of thermal conductive material (unlike CPU Liquid Coolers).
INSTALLATION
We normally don't have an installation segment when testing coolers but the Accelero Hybrid II-120 is somewhat unique se we decided to make an exception. To test it we used the Gainward GeForce GTX 670 2GB Phantom Edition a mid-end graphics card which is quite popular amongst gamers.
As usual the first thing you will need to do is to remove the stock cooling system to unveil the PCB (in our case the card is the "vanilla" version and doesn't feature the full length PCB which was introduced later on).
Of course you will need to clear the GPU from any residue left from the thermal paste used by the cooling system.
To install the thermal pads you will need to check the front of the PCB and then place them at the rear right behind the RAM and VR chips (don't forget the black piece of foam at the center).
The protective film is used to keep the heatsink from making direct contact with the PCB so you will just have to cut the pieces over the thermal pads (as you can see it's designed for full length cards so you will need to change the placement to fit yours).
Mounting the heatsink after placing the pump at the front is very easy but you will also need to change the placement to fit your card since it too was made for full length PCBs.
ARCTIC bundles two types of clips to help secure the heatsink onto the card. The first type you can use at the base of the card (in our scenario that wasn't possible) while the second can be used at the top as seen above.
The top clips are also used to further secure the card in place with the help of the card holder.
TEST RESULTS
To test the Accelero Hybrid II-120 we used the latest version of Furmark which really loads the card like nothing else we've seen. Tests were run twice (10m/5m) in a room with a controlled temperature set at 23 degrees Celsius and on our Core i7 3930k system with a fresh installation of Windows 7 Ultimate 64 on it with all updates installed until the 2nd of April 2014. To test noise levels we used our standard ExTech HD600 Decibel Meter placed about 10-15cm above the fan. Finally the radiator of the Accelero Hybrid II-120 was set to suck air from the outside for these tests as we're certain most people will do the same to get the lowest possible temperatures.
ARCTIC recommends using the PrecisionX program by EVGA so we did exactly that and as you can see at idle the core temperature was stable at 24 degrees when using the Accelero Hybrid II-120 compared to the 35 degrees of the stock cooling system. The gap however only gets bigger when we used Furmark since with the Accelero Hybrid II-120 the temperature of the card never went over 53 degrees while without it we hit 81 degrees Celsius. Unfortunately however we had to stop our 2nd round of Furmark at roughly 5 minutes since the protection film started smelling and we obviously didn't want it to melt (it might not have but why risk it when playing games will never heat the card so much?) but even 5m running Furmark is plenty (15m for both tests).
Things were a bit strange in the noise level department since the 120mm PWM fan hits most of its speed even at 30% so between that and the max number supported by the bios of the card the difference in dBA was very small. Regardless the Accelero Hybrid II-120 is still roughly 10dBA more silent compared to the stock cooling system of the Gainward GeForce GTX 670 2GB Phantom.
CONCLUSION
I've said it the past that one of the things i really like about hardware that can be benched is that there's nothing more for us to add that our charts don't clearly show and what are charts show right now is that the Accelero Hybrid II-120 Air/Liquid Cooler by ARCTIC blows away the stock (yet "aftermarket/custom") cooling system of the Gainward GeForce GTX 670 2GB Phantom graphics card. Could it be better? Performance-wise we really have no complaints since we even managed to overclock the card by a healthy 15% without it crossing 60 degrees in Furmark while when it comes to noise levels it's inaudible if you have even just 1 system fan in your tower. One thing we noticed is that the Accelero Hybrid II has the 120 number next to it which obviously points to the 120mm radiator. However because of that we can't help it but to think that ARCTIC may introduce a 240mm model in the future perhaps for mGPU cards or ultra-high end cards. Of course that might just be us overthinking things but since 240mm AIO kits do exist we think that it would be very easy for ARCTIC to use the same mounting system on one of those but even if that's their plan a move like that will certainly depend on how good sales will be for the 120mm version.
Although the Accelero Hybrid II-120 has both high performance and low noise levels on its side it does have a small drawback and that's its current price tag which is set at USD129.99 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and 115Euros inside the EU (Amazon.co.uk). Of course we didn't expect for an AIO Liquid Cooler to come cheap especially since the Accelero Hybrid II-120 doesn't have any "real" rivals in the market as we speak and I’m certain that people who can afford to spend much on high/ultra-high end graphics cards will have no problem spending a bit more to properly cool them (and at inaudible levels) but as expected that will most probably not be a valid solution for owners of low/mid end models. Still there's no denying that the Accelero Hybrid II-120 Air/Liquid Cooler is quite innovative (well not really but it is the 2nd of its kind) and does exactly as advertised which is why we give it our Platinum Award.
PROS
- Build Quality
- Innovation
- High Cooling Efficiency (GPU/RAM/VR Cooling)
- Low Noise Levels (Almost Inaudible)
- Easy Installation
- Compatibility List
CONS
- Price (For Some)
