Arctic brings the freeze to GTX680 cooling

Allow Kim Kardashian to blow on the back of your hand and you'll feel, straight away, that there is a cooling effect. Allow her to lick the same area first, before she blows, and the effect will be multiplied. You may even experience some shivers. KitGuru leaves Kim pining at home while preparing to head north in order to understand Arctic's Hybrid Cooling Solution.

nVidia has created some of the finest graphic cards the world has ever seen. There. We said it.

At the same time, clock for clock the nVidia cards almost always run slower than their Radeon equivalents. Somehow, more work is being done per MHz. That, invariably, means more juice is needed and – with certain nVidia cards – power draw and heat dissipation have been issues.

With the GeForce GTX680 pulling in more than 220 watts at full pelt, it's worth considering alternative cooling solutions – which is exactly what Arctic has done with its Accelero Hybrid option.

Arctic itself claims that this combination of air and liquid cooling for VGA cards is a world first – and that performance is ‘off the charts' compared to the kind of stock cooler nVidia would choose.

Specifically, Arctic is claiming to drop the temperature of your GTX680 by up to 26 degrees C and – at the same time – make your world a quieter place, because it's claimed to be almost 9 times quieter than a GTX680 cooler running at full speed.

Technically, the Arctic Accelero Hybrid has plenty of performance left in the tank, because it's supposed to be able to deal with GPUs that get up to 320 watts – so around 100 watts more than the GTX680 desires under normal conditions.

With UK pricing likely to be around £139 inc vat, here's how Arctic's Marketing Guru, Brice Vandervoorde, explains the product:-

“In perfect alignment with the spirit of innovation, ARCTIC developed the first integrated air and liquid VGA cooler in the market – the Accelero Hybrid. It offers an all-in-one solution with 200% cooling performance and 9 times quieter than the stock cooler. While existing VGA Liquid Cooling Solutions (LCS) are restricted to a specific graphics card, this cooler is compatible to a vast range of NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards.
The copper cold plate on the pump is ideal for excellent thermal conductivity. Its 120 mm PWM fan (F12) also compliments the cooling performance of the heat exchanger. With four different airflow directions possible, you can install the 120 mm PWM fan accordingly to improve the overall cooling efficiency. The closed loop liquid system is maintenance-free and offers nearly effortless installation. With its aerodynamically-designed Active Cooling Unit and comprehensive set of RAM and VR heatsinks, the airflow and heat dissipation efficiency is simply maximized. Surprisingly, it has a minimum weight of only 363 grams so your graphics card is unburdened. In essence, you can enjoy a high-performance and silent integrated air and liquid cooling solution for a vast range of graphics cards with absolute ease”.

KitGuru says: It's hard not to like Arctic. If you only have £15 for a basic cooler, then they have a solution for you. When you want to get serious about overlocking, out comes the world's first air/liquid GPU cooler when they launch the Accelero Hybrid solution. At the same time, they also produce a neat, desktop USB fan – which is invaluable in summer, as well as high quality rechargeable batteries. Plus, their quality control is excellent. KitGuru can't remember the last time we saw a poor product from Arctic, and the Hybrid does (on paper) look like another winner.

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