Arctic Cooling NV Silencer 5 Rev. 3

[Rob Williams]

Arctic Cooling has just updated their popular NV Silencer to support the 7800GT, and that's exactly how we are going to test it! The cooler still uses the proven design of blowing hot air out the back, and looks great while doing it. Is it better than stock though, and possibly water cooling?

Yes, this actually deserved a perfect score! I love it, and don't want to take it off my card

Please feel free to discuss the review here!

 

[madmat]

You should have popped that bad boy on your 6800GT to see if it cured your previous temp woes, it would have been interesting to see.

 

[Rob Williams]

The 6800GT I have here hasn't even been used yet, because it's the one I got back from RMA. I plan to test it out when I get the Intel up and running though.

I honestly don't think this cooler would have helped that thing though. God, it was known to hit 100ºC *shrug*

 

[madmat]

I still think it was a case of the 'sink not fitting correctly. I think the Silencer would have helped a bunch...kudos on the new card though.

 

[Rob Williams]

I had someone e-mail me today actually, who builds computers for a living. He stated that 2 out of every 5 BFG 6800GT's he came across had the overheating issue.

So it was definitely not just me either, hah.

 

[madmat]

Oh, I never thought it was just you, I just think that something is slipping at BFG's mfg. plant.

 

[Greg King]

Nice review....I am torn between the Zalman GPU cooler or this one. I had the NV5 for my 6800GT and was not to impressed but your review might make me revisit the Arctic Cooling solution. Again, nice review!

Good to see that I am not the only one with a lot of shit in an old CD or DVD cake box turned upside down.

 

[Rob Williams]

Haha yeah. It goes to show that I don't pay attention to the background when I take these shots.

You all are lucky I do these reviews with clothes on.

 

[Greg King]

^lol I suppose we are all lucky

 

[Buck-O]

A 10?!

Did AC throw their new advanced wallet cushining device in with the cooler?

I kid ...but seriously...there are some cons that i have with the cooler.

For starters, the thermal compound and thermal adhesive foam on that cooler are a complete joke. The thermal compound is MARGINALLY better then a TIM pad. It would wipe that stuff off and throw some AS5 on there right off the bat. Without even thinking about it. That particular compound loves to get air bubles in it from teh factory. And i would rather not risk my $400 GPU to that (provided i ahd a $400 GPU...yes im broke). And the thermal adhesive is more of a blanket, then a thermal transfer media. I would pull it off and replace it with an aftermarket thermal adhesive tape that i had a little more faith in. Ive also had problem with removing the cooler with that thermal adhesive material. It has a tendency to seperate, and become a real pain in teh ass to remove from the ram chips.

Also, i find the cooler to be a little loud. I guess my definition of quiet and someone elses are different, and of course everyones individual milage will vary depending on what they consider tolerable in their own environment...but i did not like the wooshing air sound coming from the back of the PC case. It was at a different pitch then the other fans in the system, and i found it to be a bit distracting.

And that also brings up another negative. It takes up an adjacent PCI slot. Not a problem if youve got a mid tower and an expansion card or two. But what about the SFF and mATX guys that may not have that luxury of an extra slot to afford? Or in the cases of most SFF's where the card placment is reversed, and the PCI card backs the PCIe slot, rhater then face it. Well, then youve got to look elsewhere. And the options are preaty slim in that case.

Granted, the cooler works well. And it does provide a somewhat better alternative then stock cooling. Is it the best? I dont think so. Is it good enough for you the general user who wants somthing "better"? Sure it is. Would i use it? No. It just doesnt do what i want it to, with the materials i prefer, and in the space i require it to do it in.

And for all that...
Had i been doing the review, i would have had a hard time deciding between 7.5 or 8 out of 10. Becuase for being a good product...its design isnt really revolutionary, and the materials used are nothing spectacular. Which really makes it nothing but your typical oversized GPU cooler. And whats so perfect about that?

 

[Unregistered]

AC Silencer5 vs evga stock cooling

I think its funny that they could only overclock the card to the stock settings of the EVGA 7800gt co. Whats even funnier is that, at stcok fan speeds, my card runs at 41 C all the time and under heavy loads with fan running at 83% card only gets up to 50C. So why owuld I ever think about tearing my card out to install a HSF that doesnt cool any better then the one already installed?

 

[Rob Williams]

Buck-O, we certainly have varying opinions, but I stick to a perfect score.

Thermal Compound? It's a different way of doing things, but it helped keep the card just as cool as the previous water cooling, so I don't see a problem there.

Noisy? Haha, I haven't noticed a slight difference in the case noise at all. My case already has 3 120mm and 2 80mm fans though, so I likely wouldn't find a difference unless it was really loud.

As for SFF.. that's the price you pay. If you don't like it, don't get SFF. There are other solutions out there

Unregistered, firstly I am surprised that you haven't seen your card go over 50ºC. You must have some cool ambient heat, because I would never even taste that in this room unless I went cascade or something

 

[Unregistered]

6800gs

The cooler also works great on the new 6800gs card. I have my card running at 525 core and 1200 memory, not bad since stock is 425/1000

 

[Buck-O]

Rob,

By your own admission teh watercooling setup was somewhat shoddy...so, i dont know as if i would hold much weight in comparing temps against it.

Like i said, noise is purely subjective. I happen to prefer systems to be at a certaint tone, and pitch. And this cooler didnt fit that. Call me crazy, i just didnt prefer it.

But a couple of things i will add is this.

A buddy of mine has gone through three of them. All of them becuase the bearing in the fans went bad, and begain making alot of noise. The good thing...they (artic cooling) replaced it factory direct. The bad thing, the seconed one they sent, went straight to ebay, and he bought a Zalman. Plus on both ocasions where he contacted Artic Cooling, they never replied back to him about the issue. But several days later a box showed up on his door from them, with a replacment unit. Awefully nice of them. But it woulda been nice to know it was coming. And then to have his seconed unit fail, really left him a bad feeling about the product.

Also, a couple of people at my LAN commented on the fact that the fins in the chute can get easily compacted and blanketed with dust particles, which can quickly hamper cooling performance. And its anoying to have to clean it ever so often.

Still dont see how it merits a perfect score.

But then again its my job to give you crap.

 

[Rob Williams]

The cooler also works great on the new 6800gs card. I have my card running at 525 core and 1200 memory, not bad since stock is 425/1000

Wow! Do you happen to have a 3D Mark score with those clocks? Damn nice man.

 

[Rob Williams]

Buck-O, haha yeah. What fun would writing reviews be if I wasn't scared about what comments I'll receive from you?

Yes, I compared it to a shoddy water cooling, but it IS water cooling. I'm not saying it may keep up to a quality water cooling kit, but it did keep up to water at some level. Also, the ambient temp inside the case is rediculous, so I would have likely earend better temps with the door off. I will have to try this later.

Also, as for the dust particles and that type of stuff, I've only been using the Silencer for a week, so I didn't have time to experience these issues.

 

[Unregistered]

I ran BF2 and Ravenshield yesterday for well over 5 hours and the highest I saw on my rivatuner history while running at 500/1200 Mhz was 62C. The temp in my house was about 68F and the interior of the case ran about 46C. I run with the stock EVGA HSF unit in an enlight 7237 or 7327 (cant remember for sure case is over 5 years old) with 1 80mm on front, 1 80mm at the rear and an Antec Neo power 480 running its own fan. Am vbery glad with my purchase of the EVGA card. I recommend it to anyone looking for a 7800gt, but you must make sure you get the GT CO as it comes with the copper heatsink and the higher stock clock speeds. Stock, runs at 470/1100.

 

[SgtSethiol]

the two unregistered postings here where mine. I figured I might as well put a name to the posts.

Asus A8N-SLI, AMD64 venice 3000+ @1880/209
EVGA 7800GT CO @500/1200
Audigy
OCZ pc3200 2*256 OCZ pc3200 1*512
WD 80GB and 200GB
Antec Neo Power480

 

[Rob Williams]

Welcome to the forums man!

I love eVGA as well... I just wish mine overclocked further. I don't understand your computer setup though.. are you running your CPU at 1.88GHz? Surely you can overclock much higher than that... I've seen some hit 2.8GHz on air and even higher.

 

[madmat]

Judging from his case temp (46C) he might be limited on his oc by the heat.

Sarge, you might consider emptying your case out and cutting the stamped fan grills off with a dremel and maybe cutting a couple of fan holes in the door of your case as well as a blowhole on the top of your case to mount an outward blowing fan.

The fans in the case door would be blowing inwards, put one where it would blow on your graphics card and the other where it would blow directly on your CPU, you should see major improvements in temps like that.

I don't recomend running a case with the door off since when you do that it allows the air to "pool" in the case since there's nothing directing airflow any longer. The fans instead dump their air right near them for intake fans and the exhaust fans pull the air near them and beyond the fan's reach no air is moving which means those areas are just getting warmer and warmer. With a few modest improvements to airflow such as cutting the stamped grills out and placing fans to blow out hot air at the top of the case where it pools and fans to blow cool out of case air directly on the hottest parts, you can see big changes to your temps with the case closed up and usually be able to either use slower fans that aren't quite as loud or use a rheobus to manually set the fan speed where you want it.