Results:
The first thing that was noticed upon initial boot with the Accelero X2, was the silence that enveloped the room. Aside from the initial fluctuations of the CPU fan, the card was very quiet - so quiet that we had to put his head right near the card just to see whether the fan was actually even working! This is a huge improvement over the stock fan included with the ATI X1900 XT video card. This is most likely a direct result of the 2000 RPM fan, which on its own is slower than the initial revolutions of ATI's stock solution.
Aside from the great noise reduction for which Arctic Cooling have become famous, I was interested to see what performance improvements I could achieve. Upon initial testing I was quite un-impressed with the performance, besides being quiet, I had yet to much in the way of temperature improvements over the stock cooler. After doing some more testing I decided the supplied cooling pad probably needed some break-in time.
| Stock | Accelero X2 |
| Room(db) | 37.0 | 37.0 |
| 1 Metre from Fan(db) | 41.2 | 39.7 |
| Close to Fan(db) | 53.5 | 40.0 |
A quick look at the Arctic Cooling website confirmed my notions of this and states on the site that the thermal paste hardens after 200 hours for optimal performance. I ran the card in the windows desktop at idle for a 20+ hour period and noticed some improvements in cooling even in that short range of time.
We here at Neoseeker are never happy with ok performance and because of that I did some further experimenting with this cooler. Instead of the stock thermal paste, I opted to try Arctic Silver, in the hopes of maybe getting a few more degree drop in temperature. What I found was that it did perform better, seeing a 6 degree drop from the stock thermal paste and an effective 10 degree drop under load in some cases!
| Stock ATI Thermal Paste | Accelero Thermal Paste | Arctic Silver Thermal Paste |
| Room(Degrees Celsius) | 25.0 | 25.0 | 25.0 |
| Idle(Degrees Celsius) | 50.0 | 50.0 | 45.0 |
| Load(Degrees Celsius) | 89.0 | 85.0 | 79.0 |
Conclusion:
So what are my final thoughts on the Accelero X2? Well initial impressions were not as great as what was seen after the cooler was broken-in.
The first thing you will notice with this cooler is the noise levels (or lack thereof). ATI's stock cooling solution noise levels are a big annoyance, especially during startup. This is where Arctic Cooling got things very right and caused me to wonder why the stock solution really had to be so loud.
Loading Windows with the Accelero X2 was impressive on its own, but after spending some time breaking in the cooler, I found that I was able to drop the temperature by about 4 degrees under load. While not an amazing feat, it was an improvement nonetheless.
Overall if you are looking for a quiet solution for the X1900 or even the X1800 series video card, this will definitely make you happy. If you are looking for a cooler solution on the X1900 XT, this card is still competent, although I would consider experimenting with the Arctic Silver thermal paste, to get the best from an already impressive solution.
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