Vantec Iceberq 6 VGA cooler

[FritzDaKat]

Was thinking of adding one next week, anyone try them out yet? What ya' think? ect.

[MindlessOath]

i was going to get one of these too... anyone else try it out? i dont want a crappy cooler at all.

[FritzDaKat]

Well, all the reviews I've read point to a "Yes" on it doing the job well. I'll be getting one for sure on or around Oct. 8th. even though I have a feeling I'm gonna miss that pci-e (x1) slot it's going to block. I'll be sure to post back with before and after gpu & case temps. Though I'll be using Antec 5 silver paste instead of whatever they supply, sooo I guess I'll hold off on the reply for "200 hrs." for burn in's sake.

The added case exhaust is making me want to slot the face of my tower to let more air pass over the hard drives  But then, I'm crazy like that.





*** With Stock cooler & fresh coat of Silver grease, PC Wizard says,,,

      Mainboard temp, 38 C
      Aux temp.   36 C
      GPU    54 C

(I really "need" an IR thermomitor)

[MindlessOath]

ya i need an IR thermo too! is that GPU at idle or load?

[FritzDaKat]

Idle, but that was a couple hours after re-greasing,
 
It's an eGeForce 7600 gt w. 256 mb ddr3 and the friggin fan speed is locked  

According to Riva tuner's monitor, I seem to average in the low 60's while gaming. Not terrible, but I do notice things getting a bit "glitchy" when the temps hit 68-72 but thats just when I bump the clock up from 560 to 670'ish

[MindlessOath]

i understand its an nvidia card, but http://www.techpowerup.com/atitool/
may be able to control your fan speed if its supported. i havent a clue if it is.

[FritzDaKat]

Nice site, unfortunatly it doesn't run under Vista yet.

Though I did find an interesting NIC card in the review section I think I'll be adding

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Bigfoot_Networks/KillerNIC_M1

[MindlessOath]

yea, its not so great. not bad especially if you want to download torrents with your unit turned off - and have a nice sized usb drive in there.

the M1 doesnt have that function either unless you pay more for it.

overall its all a grain of salt but great principle - alot of server boards work with the principle of an onboard processor to reduce cpu cycles, great! and the killer nic uses something to increase udp (not tcp, but the transfer protical games use) transfer.  in theory it should increase gameplay without any optimizations, but it doesnt really do great of a job in real world testing.

[FritzDaKat]

It seems to have gotten mixed reviews (Granted most fell into the problematic camp) and the negative responses seem to be mostly related to hardware incompatibilities. I have yet to search their forums, but I think I may try it still if I dont see any major red flags with my curent hardware config.

[MindlessOath]

i dont think hardware is much of an issue, its just that it doesnt really do what it says to do. all the reviews say its going to get the same results as the next network card. tests show it will free up some cpu but thats it.

is that worth that kind of cash? in my opinion no. but great theory!

[FritzDaKat]

Quick Update:

Just installed the IceberQ 6 about an hour ago.

The instalation went pretty smooth though I was a bit dissapointed where the ram cooling is concerned. From what I had seen of the setup, I was previously under the assumption that the Ram heatsinks would sandwich up against the larger vga cooling block and I had also hoped they would have been made of solid copper as is the VGA heatsink, BUT unfortunatly, they are just a bunch of copper colored aluminum heatsinks which get held on to the ram chips by the included thermal adhesive tape :/
Of course thats better than having no cooling on the ram at all I guess.

So anyway, after greasing the GPU and taping down the ram-sinks, once installed, I found the fan overhangs the end of my 7600 gt by about an inch or so, basicly just enough so as to make it impossible to mount due to my 3rd hard drive being in it's way. SO, I dropped the drive to the bottom of the case to allow clearance.

Once installed, the cooler now sits in the way of my pci-e x1 slot and the plastic housing comes down to just about mid way across my 2nd PCI slot. I "could" probably fit something there, but not without some strain. Eh' PCB's are a bit flexible,,, right ?! lol

On the other hand, performance wise I have to say I am rather pleased so far.

GPU OC'd from 561 to 668 and the Mem clock bumped up a mere 30 Mhz.

Played some COD2, Normaly run at about 60 to 72 C, didnt even cross the 49 C mark, of course I'll have to game some more without OC'ing, OC'ing even more ect. and see what #'s I come up with.

[MindlessOath]

that sounds sweet!

you should have to much to worry about the memory, should be fine with alum.

[FritzDaKat]

Well, I did eventually push the mark, althou it might have been due to ambient room temp's. (I have a dillhole of a room mate who likes playing with the thermostat ) But overall, the added case exhaust has dropped my average temps a few degrees C, the cpu is a whole 5 C cooler. And I was NOT able to get the GPU above 72 C, even clocked up to 780 (It only held there for a few minutes before rolling back) And the ram no longer seems to mind an added 100 Mhz on its clock.

I guess the true test will be in a couple weeks after the paste has had time to cook in properly.