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ARCTIC include some insulation tape with the card, which you can place over some of the components as shown above. This can protect against short circuiting.
ARCTIC include a pad of foam which protects the rear of the PCB against the proprietary backplate. One side of this contains a strip of adhesive Mylar film, which attaches to the backplate. If you adhere the pad to the PCB then it can be slightly more difficult moving the backplate around to line up the mounting holes.
The next step is to locate the cooler spacers and screws. Set these to the side carefully. The HD7970, 7950, 7870, 7850, 6970, 6950, 6870, 6850, 6790, 5870, 5850 and 5830 only need the 3mm white spacers shown above.
Flip the cooler over to expose the mounting base. Be careful not to touch the base directly as ARCTIC pre-apply thermal paste here. Locate the four white spacers and use the adhesive tape to stick them onto the mounting plate as shown above. The correct hole to use is the inner most of the three grouped holes. Not the one at the very inner position, on its own. Double check that the spacers are correctly positioned, while looking directly down at the head of the base.
They can be moved a little by hand without coming loose. Note, that if these aren't mounted correctly at this stage, then the screws won't feed through properly, and lock from the back of the graphics card PCB.
The next stage is to remove the mounting plate on the graphics card. Simply unscrew two screws holding it in place. Hold the screws in a secure place for a few minutes.
Place the plate over the center of the card, above the GPU Core. This can be used as a visualisation before mounting heatsinks to the graphics card. You will notice that the memory chip at the very bottom of the card won't accept a full sized heatsink, or it will block the mounting of the cooler plate, from above. The mounting plate can be reattached now, back in place for the next stage.
ARCTIC supply two packets of adhesive compound, which have to be mixed together, one is white and the other gray. We used one of the plastic sections of the shipping container to mix. Make sure to squeeze both bags thoroughly. ARCTIC include a ‘magic wand', which is basically a plastic spatula for mixing and applying the thermal glue.
The compound has to be mixed by hand for 5 minutes. It is important to time this fairly accurately, otherwise it won't work as well as it should. After this is done, then you need to wait for a further 15 minutes before applying the thermal glue to the heatsinks.
wow thats wicked!
Excellent, but boy thats expensive, about £70 when it hits in UK I reckon!
Its a great video card, but im not sure about that install, seems to take forever and im not that confident. was going to get a 7950, but I might just opt for a sapphire card which has a good cooler already. ill probably kill the card completely
Hi, I just installed all the heatsinks on mine card, except this one: http://i.imgur.com/Iyr2N.jpg
Do I need to install the last one to the blank slot aswell or not? Seems like you’ve put it in but I’m wondering if it may cause some kind of conflict.
Hey. Nice review, though I got a question. I got the cooler today aswell, I’ve put all the heatsinks except this one http://i.imgur.com/Iyr2N.jpg because seems like mine board does not have a component and neither does your. Do I still need to put it there?
The installed cooler pics seem to show the weight of the heatsink bending the plastic cooler, did you have another pic of it in the case? The design worries me as it puts all the weight to one side and when installed I imagine that could look pretty precarious.
I have the Artic Cooling Accelero Twin Turbo II. The smaller 250 watt two-fan version of this cooler for my Sapphire Flex 6950. I agree that the install seems very hard, but there are two thing s you can do to make things easier: 1) get an eElmer,s glue stick ( glue in a lipstick type container ) 2) get some Artic Silver or other brand thermal adhesive glue. Artic Silver’s glue dries in 3 minutes, not 5 hours.
The stupid little washers that go between the card the spacers are a monumental pain in the butt. If you have the glue stick, you will be able to use it to attach the washers you screw up because their glue sticks to your fingers before you get the washer to your card. You will see what I mean. I got two done right and used the Elmer’s on the other two. It made no difference. The Elmer’s only has to hold the spacer to the washer until the cooler is finally attached to the card. I tried gently moving the spacers and couldn’t tell which had the original glue and which had the Elmer’s, they were all stuck just fine. If you go with Artic Silver epoxy, realize it is permanent. This might scare you, but when you realize that you would have to be a complete moron to not be able to fit the perfect sized heat sink to the ram chip, your blood pressure will go down. I guarantee you can do it and you will still have 3 minutes to to make any minor adjustments to make your heat sinks line up with laser precision. I knocked 11C off my idle and 18C of my load ( Heaven DX11- GPU maxed ). The original sapphire cooler was quiet, but didn’t cool anywhere near the reviewed specs. My system is in a Silverstone Raven II case ( 3 180mm fans on the bottom firing up), so there were no excuses for the poor cooling performance of Sapphire’s original cooler. The Artic Cooling GPU coolers are excellent and well worth the effort.
just ordered one, looks great.
At last they included a set of heatsinks, the last coolers they launched didn’t and the VRMS got too hot.
@ Yopa – I just followed the instructions for the 7970, but I dont think you need that heatsink really in that position as you say.
@ Omegared – its actually pretty secure, but there will always be a little bit of movement as the cooler is basically only secured with 4 screws from the back.
Just bought one today, looking forward to getting it 🙂 will use the review for the install, thanks !
Bought one this morning after reading this, great looking product. never done this before, but looks easy enough, if time consuming.
Hello, I’ve order this cooler also but i got a simple question.
I really don’t understand from the PDF manual where to apply the Insulation Tape.
It must be applied on the VRMs only ?
The only area of importance would be close to the ram heatsinks, to the right. but I really dont think you need it at all on the 7970 if you are careful with the heatsink application.
Guys,
Has anyone purchased this Acelero 7070 in the UK yet? I cannot find anyone who is even advertising it, isually QuietPC does, but they arnt yet wither 🙁 Where have you purchased from?
Hi Guys.
Can you please tell me where you purchased from in the UK, I cannot find anyone who is stocking this yet..?
Thanks!
I think you can order direct from ARCTIC to the UK…. on their website.
Could any of the owner of the Arctic Accelero Extreme 7970 send me the pdf file for the installation? I could not find it on the Arctic website.
“The compound has to be mixed by hand for 5 minutes. It is important to time this fairly accurately, otherwise it won’t work as well as it should. After this is done, then you need to wait for a further 15 minutes before applying the thermal glue to the heatsinks.”
NO. You apply the glue within 15 minutes. That is a fatal mistake for those installing the cooler according to the instructions provided here.
No you don’t …. you need to let the mixed compound bond for 15 minutes. you dont apply the glue that quickly. This is epoxy glue not instant bond, it needs to bond the two elements before adhering to the parts supplied.
My temp on my hd 7970 where a lot lower than this test my card was running at 90c with the ref cooler. But now it runs at 44c max and vrm,s at 47c max. The adhesive now is it one tube and you can apply straight away and takes under 1 hour it took 20 mins for me. What a great bit of kit. Ps it is big so you will need a big case