Arctic Accelero Xtreme 7970- will it fit my FT02?

[Halogen23]

I recently bought a Silverstone FT02 with birthday money I got recently. So far, I've been pleased with it in every way, though I am still bothered at the sound profile of my reference 7970.

I've grown impatient waiting for someone other than Arctic Cooling (that didn't cost $100) to come out with a compatible aftermarket cooler and having very good experience with them and an extra $75 left over I ordered the 7970 cooler from them.

I was wondering if this bad boy is gonna fit. I've seen pictures of it installed and I know that it is LONG. On the website it says that it is 288mm long which translates roughly to 11 1/3 inches. From the PCI slots down to the fans at the bottom is 12 1/8 inches. That's going to be a snug fit! I searched around on the interwebs and couldn't find anyone using this cooler in an FT02 or RV02 to see what their experience was with this setup or even if it was able to fit at all.

Do any oof you know whether I will have a problem with getting this monster in there?

 

[frostedflakes]

Should fit fine, I've used a slightly longer card (11.7") before in my FT02.

Those AC Accelero coolers don't perform optimally in the vertical orientation that the FT02 uses, though. Due to the rotated motherboard design you have to be very careful about what cooler you choose. Check out this article.

http://en.expreview.com/2010/11/15/90°-rotationhow-to-install-heatpipe-cooler/11843.html

 

[Halogen23]

Through the many forums I searched through for information on the topic, the general conclusion I was brought to from other's thoughts about the vertical orientation of the heatpipe vga coolers was that it really didn't matter for much. Other people's personal experiences seemed to contradict the information shown in the chart. Still, even if the AC xtreme 7970 only cools as well as the stock heatsink because of the defecit from being turned 90 degrees, I will still be satisfied because it will be quiet.

My only concern was that it would fit.

 

[frostedflakes]

It's fairly easy to test if you want to when you get the cooler and install it. All you have to do is run a stress test like Furmark with the card in the vertical orientation, then rotate the case 90 degrees so that it's sitting on its face, which puts the card in the conventional horizontal orientation, and run the same test. I did this with a 6950 DirectCU II unlocked and OC'd to 6970 speeds, in the vertical orientation the card would overheat (got up to 100C pretty quickly before I shut down Furmark), but rotating the case so the card was in the horizontal orientation and temperature would max out at like 83C I think. Some heatpipe coolers just perform terribly in the vertical orientation.

 

[Halogen23]

Hmmm, I may just be screwed then. I guess I will just have to wait and see how it turns out when it gets here.

 

[Halogen23]

Great news.

After installing the AC extreme for my 7970, I have found that it works very well in every way. It is very quiet compared to the stock 7970 cooler- virtually inaudible under full load compared to the rest of my case fans.

If anyone read the above posts, they probably gathered that the vertical orientation of the cooler was going to be a problem. NOT SO, in my case(pun intended =D). At ambient case temps of 29*C, my 7970 at stock volts and mild OC to 1040core 1436mem only managed to get up to 58*C(!) while playing various large outdoor maps in BF3. With the stock cooler and exactly same fan profile under MSI Afterburner the GPU would consistently get up to 83*C. That, my friends, is a TWENTY FIVE DEGREE difference.

Also, for anyone else who might have a 7970 and a FT02; installing the AC extreme on your card will make it NOT fit into your case as is. You will have to remove the fan holder bracket that the middle 180mm fan rests on for it to give proper clearance to this beast.

I am VERY pleased with this cooler! At $98 plus shipping with all of it's potential problems with the FT02 I almost never installed it. I sure am glad I did!

 

[frostedflakes]

Thanks for the update, glad to hear it's working out for you. I forgot to mention this in my previous post but the interesting thing about my 6950 DCII is that the cooler didn't have any overheating problems in the FT02 at stock or with a mild OC (no voltage increase), the card would top out around 80C in Furmark I think, and would of course stay much cooler while actually gaming. However with the shaders unlocked and the card overclocked and overvolted, the cooler seemed to become "overwhelmed" by the additional heat in the vertical orientation whereas rotating the case so it was in the horizontal orientation stopped it from overheating.

There's no denying that these coolers can have issues with the vertical orientation in the FT02, the EXPreview results are very clear, the Accelero Xtreme Plus they tested ran 20C hotter in the vertical orientation than the horizontal orientation. It's a result of the working fluid having to work against gravity to return to the hot side of the heatpipe after it condenses on the cool side. A good wicking structure can mitigate this problem, but the heatpipe efficiency will *always* be lower when it has to work against gravity like that. Whether it hurts efficiency enough to cause problems is another thing, though. Keep in mind that they were loading the card with Furmark, which is very demanding, and even in the vertical orientation the card didn't overheat in their testing.

If you wanted to experiment with it you could try loading the card with Furmark (with OCP/power limiters disabled) in both the vertical and horizontal orientations to see what happens. Temps might be an issue in the vertical orientation then. But to be fair that's not a very realistic load, as long as it stays cool enough for what you do that's all that matters I guess. I'd just keep in mind the potential issues and keep an eye on temps, though, for example if you run GPGPU apps on your card (like a Bitcoin miner) they will put a more Furmark like load on your GPU and stress it much harder than most games.