VC 2600 performance
Performance
And so we reach the important part of a cooler, cooling performance. Room temp was around 26c (with the help of an A/C unit).
As soon as the PC went into windows, the temp of the card at idle was around 57c, but after some time using it, the ambient case temp went up, and so did the cards idle temp, at 59~60c. I believe that is because the fins are not connected to the base just above the core, but infact on the outer part of the cooler. That means that the heat not only has to travel up the copper base, but also to the heatsinks back to get to the fins.
The heat needs to travel up the copper base, and then find the fins which are not directly on top of the core because that is where the fan is located.
The tests then. 3DMark 2006 was used, along with Counter Strike Source (1 HDR map, 1 map with no HDR, run twice.) and Half Life 2: Lost Coast
In 3DMark 2006, the card reached a temp of 75c.
Interesting, in Counter Strike Source, the card reached a temp of 79c, during a round where an HDR map was used. It seems that the Source engine is putting more strain on the card.
It is a similar case in Lost Coast as it was during the HDR map in CSSource. The card was around 78~79c for most part of the level.
For a small comparison, the Sytrin VF1 Plus which was reviewed before, did a max of 59c in CounterStrike Source (same maps as the VC coolers.) Apologies for not using the reference cooler, as i don't have it anymore. But I do know that the reference was warmer than the VF1 one. Also, the VF1 Plus was running at the "high" RPM setting, which that did give it a lot of cooling power, but also more noise than the VC coolers.
We'll now move on towards the other cooler we'll be reviewing today, the VC3600. A conclusion on both these coolers will be given on the last page of this article.
