Arctic Cooling Silencer NV 5 Review

[Clay]

Arctic Cooling Silencer NV 5 Review (http://www.nvnews.net/reviews/arctic_cooler_nv5_silencer/)

http://www.nvnews.net/reviews/arctic_cooler_nv5_silencer_rev2/images/pkg01.jpg

My particular product required some tweaking but it was well worth the time! I hope this proves helpful and informative to those of you out there thinking about purchasing one of these. In particular, I tried to provide some helpful information to those of you that might be kind of new to this kind of upgrade.

[MUYA]

Good stuff, honest review! Great performance considering the stock cooler had AS2 and ceramique instead of factory gunk.

[ChrisRay]

Wooh.

[bkswaney]

Very nice review Clay. :D
It's the Best NV5 review period!

After reading it I'm taking my NV5 back off
and make sure my GPU and ram are all
making good contact. ;)

[Clay]

Very nice review Clay. :D
It's the Best NV5 review period!

After reading it I'm taking my NV5 back off
and make sure my GPU and ram are all
making good contact. ;)
Thanks again. There aren't many NV 5 reviews to begin with and only one or two possibly of the Rev. 2. Good luck with checking your contacts. :)

[einstein_314]

Good show Clay! Very good review.

[mike2h]

thx for a great, informative review.
would you mind telling me where you got the rev2?

[Clay]

Thanks guys. Sure, I got this from CrazyPC.com (http://www.crazypc.com).

[monkeydust]

Nice review. Are they only producing the Rev. 2's now? I'm curious since I have 2 coming from New Egg and the site doesn't mention what revision they are.

Also, did you use the thermal compound that came with the coolers? I'm wondering how that compares to AS5.

[|MaguS|]

Man, I need to reinstall mine. My temps are high compared to yours... Im hitting 50C idle. ><

[Sgt_Pitt]

im on 59c idle :(

[saturnotaku]

You have far more patience than I, Clay. I would expect the product to fit and make proper contact on the first run. I think it's pretty ridiculous the number of people who have had to make modifications to the cooler in order to get it to fit properly.

[lapino]

I had two of these. Bought a second one because I though the first one wasn't exactly silent. My second one still isn't. Mind, it's a big improvement over the stock 6800GT cooler (Aopen) but I can still hear it quite well. I have a Antec P160 case with 120mm exhaust fan and ultra silent Enermax power supply (both of which are really just silent). Is this normal? Mind, it's quiet, but not silent!

[911medic]

Nice review!
One thing I noticed with mine was my case fan configuration made a noticeable difference in how much air my NV5 (rev. 1) seemed to push out of the exhaust port. Perhaps this might affect your closed-case temps?
Explanation: My initial case fan configuration consisted of 4 Vantec Stealth 80mm fans, 2 intake (low front) and 2 exhaust (rear), as well as the two fans in my True430 (exhaust). I had the two front intake fans connected to the "fan only" connectors of my PSU, so they would spin slower and ramp up cool intake air only as needed (when the PSU temp dictated). The two rear fans spun at full speed (albeit relatively slow, since they're Stealths). So, I had two faster-spinning fans exhausting as well as two slower spinning fans exhausting (thru one hole, really; the PSU), and only two slower-spinning fans intaking. You would expect this to create a negative pressure inside the case.
I achieved pretty good/responsive CPU cooling with this configuration. However, once I installed my NV5, I found that I really couldn't feel any air being exhausted from the case via the NV5. I even held a tissue near the exhaust, and I really couldn't attribute any movement to the NV5. The NV5 fan isn't really a type of fan that generates a lot of push out the exhaust; Arctic-Cooling even somewhat addresses this issue in the product FAQ's (http://arctic-cooling.com/vga2.php?idx=74&data=6&disc=). I began to think that it was having a hard time overcoming the negative pressure created in the case.
So, I re-configured my fans so that the two rear Vantecs were PSU controlled, and the two fronts spun at full speed. I hoped this would help decrease the intake/exhaust discrepancy, and make it easier for the NV5 to push air out of the case. Lo and behold, it worked! There was now a noticeable difference in the exhaust coming from the NV5. My CPU cooling took a bit longer to respond, but the end temps were the same.
I didn't notice a HUGE difference in my GPU temp (maybe a degree or two) between the two fan configurations, but my ambient temp was ~5 degrees lower with the "improved" configuration. I typically idle now with a GPU temp of ~49C and an ambient ~34C w/my 6800GT. This is probably ~5C lower than with the stock cooler (I guess I had a decent one). I used AS5 on the GPU and the included paste on the memory w/the NV5.

Anyway, sorry for the long post, but this might have something to do with your closed-case temps.

[Clay]

I'll try to respond to the above posts within this one post...

@monkeydust: Good question, unfortunately I do not know. I checked some onilne vendors and none that I could see mentioned a (Rev. 2). The thermal compound they provide seems similar to Ceramique. I still prefer AS5 on the GPU core and I never put AS5 on the memory of course due to possibility of conductivity around the BGA base.

@saturnotaku: I can appreciate your stance on this as I shared that feeling initially. Perhaps it was after removing/sanding/re-installing the 20th time or so that broke my spirit. :D Seriously though, it seems to be asking a lot for something as precise as this needs to be to work perfectly straight out of the box. If there height variance on your card's memory modules then there's not much Arctic Cooling can do to address that. However, if they reduced the thickness of the memory pads to about 1/2 their current thickness and provided thermal pads (instead or in additon to thermal compound) then I think that would make this installation process go much smoother. Thermal pads would just help to fill in the height variance better. I despise thermal pads though since they're so fragile. You would need many extras in case you had to do some trial and error.

@lapino: It's difficult to say for sure without actually hearing yours in comparison to mine. Just like image quality, sound perception is very subjective so what is quiet to me may not be so "quiet" to someone else. To me, if I cannot hear it over my PSU fans or hard drives then it is effectively silent. Powered on by itself I'm sure there is detectable noise but of course you'd never actually use it that way. It is a big improvement over the stock 6800 Ultra cooling though, that is for sure.

@911medic: Good points and ideas. I definitely considered some adjustments to my air cooling setup after finishing this review. There's no doubt in my mind that improvements can be made that will at least lower ambient considerably. Regarding the exhaust from the NV 5. You're right, the output is not very strong but the air coming out is quite warm under load so that's a good sign. I've considered fashioning a duct that would enclose the NV 5's fan intake area and running that directly to an intake case fan from the outside.

[911medic]

Clay, you mentioned in the review that AC started using more robust bolts w/the Rev. 2 NV5. Any chance you could elaborate on that? I thought that AC fixed this problem some time ago (see this post here (http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=455546&postcount=5)). Or have they done something new?
Seems like I remember someone here posting some pics of the old vs. new bolts, but I can't find it now. I want to say the new ones didn't have threads that went as far down the bolt as the old ones did.

[Clay]

I'll have to check my notes. I found some reported comments by Arctic Cooling on this topic and based on those this was my understanding. I wouldn't rule out that the bolts may have been replaced in just later releases of the original NV 5 though. I've not seen that post with pics that you're referring to. If you find it please post a link. Thanks.

[Rytr]

Finally, read the review in its entirety. Excellent review, especially since you had to do the work to get the cooler to perform...many, I think, may not be seeing the benefits this cooler can actually bring once it's seated properly.
There are a number of reviews on the net but none cover all the areas this one does.

:thumbsup:

I am very familiar with lapping, from lapping heatsink for hot-running T'Birds, and it is time consuming. But once you have a mirror surface and 100% contact you can ask no more of your HSF. Most heatsinks, both for gpu' and cpu's, seem much better in the critical contact areas nowadays. However, this does not seem to be the case with this this cooler. Got to check and make sure I have enough sandpaper and grades...might be needing them again.

[monkeydust]

Second opinion...

I got my two today for my DFI-SLI system. They don't fit! I can't quite fit both of my videocards in when they both have the NV5's installed. I didn't realize they were this big. Plus, it takes up a PCI slot leaving me only one. Back they go. :(

[Sazar]

Arctic Cooling Silencer NV 5 (Rev. 2) Review (http://www.nvnews.net/reviews/arctic_cooler_nv5_silencer_rev2/)

http://www.nvnews.net/reviews/arctic_cooler_nv5_silencer_rev2/images/pkg01.jpg

My particular product required some tweaking but it was well worth the time! I hope this proves helpful and informative to those of you out there thinking about purchasing one of these. In particular, I tried to provide some helpful information to those of you that might be kind of new to this kind of upgrade.

nice review once again :)

[Clay]

Second opinion...

I got my two today for my DFI-SLI system. They don't fit! I can't quite fit both of my videocards in when they both have the NV5's installed. I didn't realize they were this big. Plus, it takes up a PCI slot leaving me only one. Back they go. :(
Did you mean to type NV 6's? The NV 5 is not intended for use on the 6600GT.

NV 6: http://arctic-cooling.com/vga2.php?idx=62

Height map PDF...
http://www.arctic-cooling.com/downloads/compatibility/height_restr_nv6_r2.pdf


@Saz: Thanks :cool:

[-=Gib-McFragger=-]

Good review mang. :)

[911medic]

I'll have to check my notes. I found some reported comments by Arctic Cooling on this topic and based on those this was my understanding. I wouldn't rule out that the bolts may have been replaced in just later releases of the original NV 5 though. I've not seen that post with pics that you're referring to. If you find it please post a link. Thanks.
Ahhhhh....for the life of me I can't find a post with those pics, but I'd swear I've seen it, either here, on another forum, or in an acutal product review. Closest thing I've come to is this quote from a 11/08/2004 review (http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:llR29HaeU8QJ:www.silentpcreview.com/Sections%2Bindex-req-printpage-artid-197.html+nv5+screws+break&hl=en&ie=UTF-8) of the ATI Silencer 2:
"There have been reports of people over-tightening the nuts and breaking the screws. The screws are quite thin and they do not look as if they would be too hard to break. We tightened the nuts quite a bit, until the screws were starting to bow under the tension, but they did not break. (NOTE: Arctic Cooling did announce that the threaded shaft size had been beefed up, but we do not know whether these samples are pre-mod or post-mod.)"

[Clay]

Hmm, interesting. I may try to contact Arctic Cooling and see if they can clarify some of these questions.

[jAkUp]

Great job on the review Clay!!!