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Each of the copper base sections ships protected underneath a layer of plastic. These obviously will need removed before applying the thermal paste. We immediately noticed the extremely high standards of engineering, with a very smooth base on both sides of the cooler.
We grabbed the nearest HD6990 at hand, which in this case was a Sapphire card.
Removing the HD6990 reference cooler is not a difficult process. First remove two screws from the backplate section as shown above. Make sure not to misplace any of these.
Remove all the screws from the rear of the card as shown above, taking care not to damage the PCB underneath the protective cover. Arctic Cooling state it is better to remove the PCB from the cooler with the backplate in place, but it is simple either way.
The PCB should unlock from the cooler without much effort, just be careful when pulling the two apart. Then remove the fan header from the PCB. Clean the two GPU cores carefully to remove any remains of the thermal paste. It is worth pointing out that some of the thermal pads may have adhered to the PCB components rather than the cooler section, so remove these also and reapply to the reference cooler. Keep all the screws for the fitting of the Accelero Twin Turbo 6990 and store the reference cooler back in the AMD HD6990 box.
Above, the Accelero Twin Turbo 6990 cooler (left), beside the AMD reference cooler.
Be sure to remove all traces of thermal paste from the two GPU cores and any of the sticky thermal pads which may have adhered to the PCB components.
Above, apply the three 2mm spacers to the central section of the Twin Turbo 6990 cooler. These are adhesive on one side and should stick to the cooler – just be sure they are positioned exactly right for later. Don't rush this stage.
Gather all the thermal pads and start sticking them to the cooler, both sides have plastic protective covers, so be sure to remove them all.
Above, all the thermal pads adhered to the card. Next apply the supplied high grade MX4 paste evenly to both copper blocks. Arctic Cooling have supplied a perfect amount, so be careful to ensure that you balance the application.
Arctic suggest using a ruler for lining the cooler to the PCB, but we really don't understand why this would be needed. We suggest lining it up by eye and paying close attention to the central section – those 2mm spacers underneath need to be aligned perfectly for the screws later. Both GPU core sections will ‘slot' into the holes without much effort as shown above.
Lastly, reattach the protective backplate and mount it in place with all the screws. You don't need the two screws for the I/O plate anymore, but be sure to store them away in case you need to use the reference cooler again at a later date.
Above, the cooler mounted firmly in place. It is a heavy beast, adding 820 grams to the overall weight of the card.
very impressive beast for sure
excellent cooler, shame about the ridiculous pricing. thats more than some low end video cards. decent video cards too !
Looks brilliant, I suppose if you could afford a HD6990 in the first place that something like this would be worth it, I would rather aim a bit lower down the food chain myself. a lot of cash for a GFX.
Awesome, if a little expensive IMO.
Very glad to see they did away with the seperate little heatsinks for memory etc, those were a nightmare. I had 2 of mine drop off over time in the c ase.
I ordered a 6990 last week and i should get it this coming week if the stock is still holding ok.
Only problem I have with this is the price. I think AMD should have done a better job out of the gate, rather than allowing these to be made in the first place. I dont know why companies like AMD dont work with partners to release a proper version of the cvard in the first place.
Bit disappointed with the reference cooler on this, thats shoddy.
OMG Zardon, you are the man! Not a week after owning a 6990 and already a wicked review. I am definitely buying one though I do have a question which affected my 5970 Accelero Xtreme (equivalent of this)….does this cool the VRM’s? In Gpu-z the would get really hot while the gpus themselves were cool and that was the only downside to the cooling.
Yeah there is voltage regulator cooling with this one. they also seem to have done a better job by making the central platform cooler section part of the main piece, although it ‘floats’. Also all the thermal padding looks in the right spots for component cooling. I hated those individual heatsinks with paste. what a cock up that was.
Very impressed myself, might pick one up as I have a 6990 and it drives me friggin crazy when im gaming.
AMD need shot for their coolers, they are pants.
Excellent product, although it doesn’t solve something that upset me with the majority of after market video cards coolers – you can’t replace the fans! With this one though it seems pretty easy to take those off and zip-tie 2 Gentle Typhoons AP-15….any change of testing that Zardon?
Hi John, If I get some time I can try. What fans are you interested in specifically?
@Zardon
I’m thinking established fans like Gentle Typhoon AP15s, some Yate Loons at higher fps and just for funzies some Deltas……you take your pick 😉
Thanks for the review, I think this is the first one out there. I installed this today in my Dell 435t (I’ve also added an SSD drive and an HX850). Took some wiggling to get the side of the case back on, not much space to spare at all, but it got back on after removing a metal cross bar and a useless plastic piece.
This cooler’s fans are very quiet, even when set at 100% in Catalyst. However, when playing BC2 maxed out @ 2560×1600, either the SYS1 fan or the CPU fan are kicking up louder it seems, and seems like a lot of hot air is now exiting from the top of the case near the power supply instead of formerly (when using the stock cooler) at the bottom of the case, where the 6990 is. I realize I should have a better case w/ better ventilation, but seems like the cooler is keeping more hot air in my case, or at least significantly changing the air flow. I guess I could switch out some of the Dell stock fans, too. Anyway, it’s still a big improvement in noise over the leafblower stock cooler, even with the other fans kicking up.
I bought one too, and run it at 100% in CCC as it is quiet even at that. You do need good case cooling as more heat gets trapped inside the case.
Several good exhaust fans at rear of chassis are important to help with airflow with one of these installed. HD6990 produces a ton of heat.
@Will
If your case has top mounted PSU it fails from the start. Also did i understand right that you’re using the stock cooler for the CPU? Seems to me like you have 2 more “upgrades” to do: case and CPU cooler.
Yeah, the case sucks ventilation wise but the stock MB has some proprietary connections and I’d rather just get a whole new non-locked MB if I’m going to switch cases, and I’d rather not spring for a new (end of life) X58 board or both a new 1155 board and processor at this point. I think my best option now w/o getting a new case is to replace the non-CPU cooler stock fans. There’s a 92MM fan sitting right below the power supply that I think I’ll replace with a Kama Flow 2 fan, and a fan in the front bottom of the case that draws air into the case.
Re the stock CPU fan, I think the MB’s screws for the stock CPU fan are slightly off standard spec. Also, the stock MB locks the i7 920 to 2.66 ghz, so the processor isn’t running terribly hot.
Update in case anyone is installing this in a 435t/xps 9000. I replaced the stock cpu cooler with an arctic freezer 13. The push pins would not go down into the MB far enough, so I used regular screws on the mounting bracket instead (similar size to the stock cpu cooler’s screws), and this worked fine and eliminated a lot of noise.
Also, my second GPU was overheating when even barely used (97 degrees celsius easy), and I figured out this was caused by there being nothing but bare case floor beneath the bottom 3 PCI slots where the arctic 6990 must go, and the card was leaning too far down because of its weight. I solved this by using a twist-tie on one of the power cables to create a lifting effect on the card, thereby giving the arctic 6990 clearance from the floor. Temps are back to normal ranges (max of about 62 degrees after running furmark benchmark), although the 2nd gpu still runs about 5 degrees hotter at full load.
Fantastic article. I’m going through several these difficulties.
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I see that your VReg temps went up under Furmark from 102.7C with the stock cooler to 110.5C with the Accelero. That doesn’t seem too good. What VReg temps are other people with this cooler seeing?