Review of Akasa's Vortexx Neo VGA cooler.

Introduction

Product Features

Specifications

Cooler

Dimensions: 210(L) x 102(W) x 37(H) mm

Weight: 290g

Material: Copper Base and heatpipes, aluminium fins, plastic cover

Fan


Size: 80 x 80 x 25mm

Speed: 2500 RPM

Noise level: 1.0 Sone

Connector: 3-pin

Bearing: Sleeve bearing

Compatibility List

ATI

Radeon HD 3870 (RV670 XT)
Radeon HD 3850 (RV670 Pro)
HD 2900 XT
HD 2900 Pro
HD 2600 XT - GDDR4
Radeon X1950 XTX
Radeon X1950 Pro
Radeon X1900 XTX
Radeon X1900 XT
Radeon X1900 Crossfire
Radeon X1900 GT
Radeon X1800 XT
Radeon X1800 Crossfire
Radeon X1800 XL
Radeon X1800 GTO  

Nvidia

GeForce 9800 GTX
GeForce 9600 GT
GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)
GeForce 8800 GT (G92)
GeForce 7900 GTS
GeForce 7900 GTX
GeForce 7900 GT
GeForce 7800 GTX
GeForce 7800 GT
GeForce 6800 Ultra
GeForce 6800 GT
GeForce 6800 GE
GeForce 6800 GS
GeForce 6800 XT
GeForce 6800 LE

Packaging and contents

The Akasa Vortexx Neo comes in a bright blue/black packaging. The front of the box is blue at the bottom and fades to black towards the top. The rest of the box is all black.

On the front of the box you have the name of the cooler, a little snipet of the spec info and a clear plastic window through which you can all of the cooler in its mighty blue glory.

On the back of the box there is a couple of pictures showing the card and its ability to cool the grpahics cards VRMs. There is a couple of picture showing what card hole dimensions the cooler is compatible with, there is also compatibility list, but for what ever reason it doesnt have the following cards in the Nvidia list GeForce 9800 GTX, 9600 GT, 8800 GTS (G92), 8800 GT (G92), yet it has the HD 3850 and HD 3870 listed in the ATI card list. On the Akasa website the cards are listed though.

There is also a comparision chart showing noise levels and cooling performance between the cooler and the HD 3870 stock cooler at 2700 RPM and 4450 RPM.

On the right hand side of the box there is another specification list and a contents list. There is also a caution that tells you that you may lose adjoining PCI/PCIe slots as this cooler is a dual slot cooler.

The same is in several different languages on the right and left hand side, French, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese.



Inside the box you find everything inside a plastic box with a cover.

Inside that you have including the cooler, the following...



mounting kit

and yes, thats all there really is, 4 collar nuts and 6 plastic washers. 2 of them spare im guessing although in the manual it says you only get 4.

3 to 4pin cable adapter

thermal compound

a stick of chewing gum. Well what I thought it was until I looked in the manual and realised that it was a pack of thermal pads for the memory.

and the installation manual which is stapled to the bottom of the plastic box in its own plastic wallet.

This is also in French, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese along with English.

Up close and personal

The cooler is all plastic blue uv reactive and has a nice blue sticker on it with the cooler name.

The fan

The fan is 80mm and runs at a max speed of 2500 RPM and has a noise level of of 0.475 Sone at 2500 RPM. It also has some blue LEDs in it to light everything up nice and pretty.

As you can see there is a hole in the back of the cooler so all the hot air from it gets exhausted out of the back of your case.


The card is powered by a 3 pin connector that you can plug into your motherboard or fan controller. The cable itself is also braided black.

It does come with the 3 to 4pin adapter so you can plug it into a molex connector. Obviously if you plug it into your motherboard make sure you dont have any temperature control enabled in the BIOS for that fan header. Dont want the fan turning down to 200 rpm and overheating the card now do we.



The heatsink is made out of aluminium and has two copper heatpipes running through it.

As you can see the aluminium plate cools the memory while the core is cooled by the copper plate.


Couple of pictures of the heatsink through the plastic case.

As you can see the copper heatpipes run through the copper base to maximise the heat transfer. The cooler is just like a normal stock cooler with the fan stucking in air from the outside and pulling the heat away from the VRM and exhausting it out of the back of the cooler, while taking the heat away from the heatsink. Very simple concept so lets see how Akasa have re-designed this simple concept and see if it will offer any improvement in cooling performance than the stock cooler on my PNY 9800GTX.

Installation

First of all you have to remove the stock cooler from your graphics card obviously. The card im using is a PNY 9800 GTX. Its pretty easy to get the stock cooler off this card. Just requires you to unscrew the cooler.


Two from the end of the card

and these 17 from the back of the card.

Next on the cards is cleaning the card. I used some Akasa TIM Clean to get rid of the thermal paste.


Nice and clean.

Now you need to put the thermal pads onto the memory chips and the thermal compound onto the core. All very simple and easy enough tasks to do.

Putting the thermal pads on was easy enough as you just have to peel off the protective cover on the bottom of the pads put it onto the memory chip and tehn peel off the top protective cover on the pad. Putting the thermal compund onto the core was a bit strange not using it out of a tube but I got there in the end.

Now its time to put the cooler itself onto the card. Doing this was even easier than taking the card itself out of my motherboard. First of all you have to remember to take off the protective cover off the bottom of the cooler.

Then just simply place the cooler onto the card, lining up the screws with the mounting holes around the core so they go through to the other side. The only difficulty that I encountered while doing this was the cooler was pushing against the wire for the LED thats in the back bracket but giving the cooler a bit of a push down it was able to move the wire out of the way and the cooler sat perfectly.

Now all that was needed was to put the 4 washers on...

and screw the 4 collar nuts on.

So easy I think you could do it blind folded.


All done and it looks great.

In the test system and all connected up.

Now lets see how it performs.

Performance


Idle temperatures


Stock cooler idle temperature. Fan at 35%

47 °C

Stock cooler idle temperature. Fan at 100%

35 °C

Akasa Vortexx Neo idle temperature.

35 °C

HD 4850 stock cooler idle temp 

67 °C

HD 4850 with Akasa Vortexx Neo idle temp

29 °C

As you can see from just the idle temperature results, this cooler is looking pretty decent.




Max temperatures


To obtain a max temperature ATI Tools artifact scanner was ran for just over 20 minutes.


Stock cooler max temperature. Fan at 35%

71 °C

Stock cooler max temperature. Fan at 100%

47 °C

Akasa Vortexx Neo.

47 °C

HD 4850 stock cooler max temp 

84 °C

HD 4850 Akasa Vortexx Neo max temp

42 °C

Conclusion


You may think why would you want to buy this cooler if you can get the same temperatures from the stock cooler running at 100% and Ill tell you why its a great buy.

Because it looks cool for one. It looks so much better with its blue UV reactive case and the 4 blue LEDs lighting it up. So much better to look at than the normal black stock coolers you have with their very strange artwork stickers on. Secondly the noise. For the performance it gives and the noise it produces its excellent. The 9800 GTX stock cooler, like most stock coolers with the fan at 100% it sounds like a 747 is taking off next to you. The cooler isnt audible at all over the Sharkoon Silent Eagle 2000 I recently got and that is rated at 36.1 dB. It is however audible over the Noctua NF-S12 fan that I have, but it is still very quiet and for the performance it gives it is excellent. And thirdly the performance. As I said easlier its basically just like a normal stock cooler but Akasa some how managed to make a cooler that inside, I can only really describe as witchcraft taking place. The cooler runs quieter, the fan spins slower, the cooler itself is smaller and lighter yet it gives the same performance as the stock cooler running at full wack and at the price of £19.96 you can not go wrong really. Oh and its a doddle to install.


This is a brilliantly designed and engineered graphics card cooler for the price and I highly recommend it.

Comment on this review in our forums.

Product link

update - 26/05

ATI HD 4850 idle & max temperature comparison added