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The AMD HD6990 has sold well since it was released, with limited stock still in the channel today. As we said earlier in the review, the performance of this discrete card is without question, however the reference cooler is noisy and struggles to maintain sub 90c temperatures under load. Always a concern after spending £550 on a video card. We always question AMD using those tiny red fans, but our concerns have fallen on deaf ears.
Arctic have released the Accelero Twin Turbo 6990 to redress this problem, offering the high end AMD enthusiast audience an alternative solution without the need to opt for watercooling. The Accelero Twin Turbo 6990 performs better than we thought it would, reducing temperatures by 4c when idle and around 23c when gaming. These are the kind of the results that the enthusiast audience will want to see. We also really do admire the engineering standards, because it is a millimetre perfect fitting.
As well as improving thermal performance, the Twin Turbo 6990 manages to reduce noise emissions to around 30 dBa when gaming. It is barely audible and will be likely drown out completely by several case fans in a performance oriented system.
So far there are no downsides, but sadly this cooler is a significant investment, with a recommended retail price of $149.99. There are no UK retailers stocking the cooler yet, but we would make an educated guess of around £100 inc vat in the UK. This would make the total cost of HD6990 ownership around the £650 mark, which might be tough to swallow for many. Compared to the nearest competitor however, you would still be saving £50 against a reference cooled GTX590. In that regard it doesn't seem like such a bad deal.
Pros:
- Class leading cooling performance, reducing temperatures by 20c+.
- Almost silent.
- Easy to install.
- Very high engineering standards.
Cons:
- It is $150 (around £100).
Kitguru says: One of the best and most capable coolers on the market, just be prepared to pay for it.
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.
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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?