Accelero XTREME Plus II by Arctic Cooling

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Accelero XTREME Plus II
by Arctic Cooling

Introduction
October 21, 2012

Accelero XTREME Plus II • A Closer Look
Radeon HD 6970 Installation • Features & Specifications • Conclusion

Accelero XTREME Plus II
by Arctic Cooling
Features: A multi-compatible video card cooler, 300-Watt cooling capacity, 83-fin heatsink, 5 heatpipes, and three 92mm PWM fans.
Company: Arctic Cooling
Announced: May 25, 2011
MSRP: $84.99 / €64.90
Current Price: Check Price / Purchase

About a year ago, I happened to get a good deal on an XFX ATI Radeon HD 6970 2GB video card. Unfortunately, it was not the switchable bios version, but I'm not complaining. It was stock, running at 880MHz for the Core Clock (GPU), and 1375MHz for the Memory Clock. What was absolutely amazingly disappointing on this thing — was that the cooling aspects were just about non-existent. For a video card costing close to $400 and up (depending on the supply and demand at the time), XFX apparently thought the stock cooler was just fine and to justify the XFX price...a cool XFX sticker thingie would be applied.

Well, this is getting irritating. I personally love XFX. Their warranties are outstandingly consumer-friendly, and their customer service has never been better with me. I have several nVidia and ATI video cards registered them. But I have an obligation to say something here when writing this review for a much better cooling fan that should have been included with XFX's 6970 version (and for the 6900 series altogether). And at the least, a dual-fan setup, Open-Air design should have been engineered, instead of some idea that a little fan could somehow pump enough air over the area of a card that's about as long as my car — and keeping all this heat enclosed in a plastic box. But anyway, let's save my video rants for another time and get to the outstanding product offered by Arctic Cooling.

Arctic Cooling

Of course, Arctic Cooling is not new to the PC cooling world. This is the first review of an Arctic Cooling product I've done, but their products have been gladly used in my computer systems and (later on with video cards) since 2001. It's impressive to see such a company achieve what they have in the last 10 years. Arctic Cooling also has a philosophy and idealogy which I admire and respect.

I remember getting abnormally excited about simply installing a bigger PC fan in my case because there just wasn't much of a market to get any fans other than what was included with a PC case at the time. Personal Computers were something new and the market for specific products to enhance the core computer products, just hadn't taken hold yet. Arctic Cooling was one of the initial few companies who offered such products.

Accelero XTREME Plus II

The Accelero XTREME Plus II was officially announced in late May 2011. Since then, it's been one of the most sought-after cooling alternatives for those particular kinds of video cards that are large, heavy, and create more heat than the PC they're sitting in. A total of three 92mm fans, 5 doublie-sided heatpipes, and an 83-fin heatsink comprise the second version of the Acccelero. Let's take a closer look...