Akasa Vortexx Neo

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Rating: 95%
Review Title: Amazing cooler

Verdict: Cheap,quiet,effecive cooling for 8800gt

i have 2xBFG 8800GT OC2's in SLI in my case, before i fitted two of these my temps were 70'C+. Now my temps are 50'C and a way more stable system, Very easy to fit. (10mins)

Rating: 0%
Review Title: It does not fit on every 8800 GT

Verdict: Couldn't review

The manafacture's compatability list says that this should fit on a 8800 GT, but i have just had the misfortune of buying 8800 GT that it won't. I have a point of view 8800 GT single slot cooler that I bought from ebuyer and i can tell you now that it does not fit as there is compacitors in the way which make this cooler impossible to fit. Beware if you have this card !!!

Rating: 100%
Review Title: Vortexx Neo on Sapphire HD 4850 = perfect cooling

Verdict: If you want a VGA cooler that expels the VGA heat out of the back of the pc the Akasa Vortexx Neo is the one to get. Despite other posts I can assure you it IS a doddle to install.

I recently bought a Sapphire Radeon HD 4850. This comes with an awful stock cooler. Idle temps, with the stock cooler, were 75 - 80 degrees with gaming @ 80 -85!! I needed a new cooler but I wanted one that expelled the hot air out of the back of the case, rather than wafting the hot air around the inside of the case, which would warm up the rest of the system (I'll call this design 'dual slot cooler' for simplicity). I looked at Arctic Cooling's solutions first but it seems thay have sold the rights for their 'dual slot coolers' and dont produce them anymore. Other comapnies, such as Zalman, also don't produce 'dual slot coolers' either. Also Zalman's VF 1000 is solid copper and I didn't fancy hanging all that weight off my gfx card!! Enter the Akasa Vortexx Neo - the only card that met all my requirements and is one of the few cards that is officially compatible with the HD 4850 (at the time of writing). Installation of the cooler is easy - simply apply the provided thermal pads to the memory chips, put a bit of your chosen thermal compound on the gfx chip and screw it on. It is important to note there are no heatsinks provided for the ultra hot VRMs on the inner end of the HD 4850. To solve this you can either: 1. Buy additional ramsinks and attach them to the relevant area - easy. 2. Do what I did and hacksaw off the end of the old stock cooler that cooled the VRMs. This is also very easy - I didn't even need to draw a guide line as the division is easily marked on the cooler. The bit you have left screws onto the card in 2 places, so you can either reattach it with thermal tape (I used the akasa stuff) or even use thermal compund and rely on the screws to hold the heatsink in place (which could be a superior solution). The beauty of the Vortexx Neo is that the fan shroud is designed to provide a cooling draught to the VRM area - perfect! Resulting temps dropped massively to 39-41 degrees idle and 50-54 degrees stressed. Overclocking is amazing - where before I could get about 680-690 on the core I can now get 700 - but the standard Catalyst OC utility only goes to 700!! I need another utility to go higher as the HD 4850 with Vortexx Neo is completely stable at 700!! Oh and I nearly forgot to mention - the cooler is inaudible over my ultra quiet 12cm system fans which makes it nearly silent!! This makes the Akasa Vortexx Neo the gold standard in aftermarket coolers now Arctic Cooling have sold their 'dual slot' design rights. The Vortexx Neo is also Crossfire compatible which is a bonus as, if you have any sense, you'll be wanting all that excess heat pumped out the back of your system and not wafted around internally. The Vortexx Neo is well constructed too with high quality materials. The Vortexx Neo is a doddle to install and I can't understand why others have had problems - perhaps they are not doing things properly...

Rating: 70%
Review Title: 25ºC hotter than a Zalman VF1000 at idle

Verdict: I'd get a Zalman VF1000 instead. After you budget for RAMsinks and TIM there won't be much in it price-wise.

Tried it on a HD3870. Didn't bother trying to stress it after seeing the idle temperatures. It did blow the air out of the back of the case though. Fan noise was noticeable as well. As mentioned in previous review you may have to budget for additional RAMsinks and TIM. Also as mentioned it's probably better on a low to mid-range card.

Rating: 85%
Review Title: Vortexx Neo = very much alive GPU

Verdict: Good cooler but you need to cool the chips that it won't reach, separately - and use your own TIM

I don't know whether using the Vortexx Neo on a PCI-E version of the Radeon 3850 is what gave me a totally different experience to Obi_Wan, it's actually stopped my GPU from dying after the reference heatsink had a TIM leak AND couldn't handle the last heatwave. I won't repeat my whole blog here, suffice to say that you need to have bought or manufactured your own heatsinks to cover the chips which the Vortexx won't reach. The more expensive and totally flat Zalman VF1000-LED cooler has no part of its body raised away from the card, so this issue is less likely to occur on that model for your extra ten pounds. Even though it worked for me I'd only use the Vortexx on low to mid-range GPUs, if you have a reference double-height cooler for you 3870 or 4870 but just couldn't stand the noise, that's when I would choose Zalman's VF1000-LED if I would change the cooler at all.

Rating: 0%
Review Title: wong100

Verdict: the 1950XT is not listed by Akasa, I am not sure why Obi_Wan tried to fit it?

check the list mentioned in the review

Rating: 10%
Review Title: Vortexx Neo = Dead GPU

Verdict: Nice idea, shame it will probably kill your GPU.

I loved the idea of replacing the stock cooler on my gecube x1950xt AGP. The standard cooler on that card is famous for taking up 3 slots, using a very poor TEC setup and being pretty lousy at cooling. I am guessing the gpu was crushed when i installed the Vortexx Neo. Oh well, I was aching to upgrade soon anyway. Got a sapphire 3850 AGP, exactly the same outcome, dead video card. I was more careful to not over tighten the screws but still ended up with no video output. RMA'ed that one as DOA. left the replacement with the stock single slot reference cooling and it does the job more than nicely. 668 GPU 828 MEM overclocks to 810 GPU 1053 MEM (2106 mhz effective) with just a slight voltage tweak. That's right, the 3850 clocked much higher than a stock 3870. Anyhow, you have been warned, avoid the Vortexx Neo if you want a working video card. My system is a 4800x2 overclocked from 2.4 to 2.64 GHz and I get 10k+ on 3dmark06 at 1280x1024.

Akasa Blue Aurora	79%
Zalman VF1000-LED	82%
Arctic Cooling Accelero S1 Rev 2	46%
Akasa Vortexx Neo	90%
Zerotherm Hurricane HC92-Cu 8800	77%
Asus Silent Knight II	68%
Cooler Master Hyper 212	50%

Akasa Akasa Vortexx Neo VGA Cooler

Akasa Vortexx Neo VGA Cooler

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