With the Accelero S1 Plus, ARCTIC has a passive cooler for graphics cards in their portfolio that features a big dissipation area and the possibility to cool a card fanless. Furthermore we didn't test it only in passive mode but also in active aircooling mode thanks to the upgrade kit, namely the S1 Plus Turbo Module.
On the following pages we will show you what the Accelero S1 Plus and the S1 Plus Turbo Module from ARCTIC are capable of.
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Preview
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Specifications and included in delivery
Specifications
| Model | ARCTIC Accelero S1 Plus |
| Material | Aluminium / Copper |
| Dimension (L x W x H) | 230 mm x 135 mm x 42 mm |
| Weight | 410 g |
| Fan | N / A (Passive Cooling) |
| Rotation speed | N /A (PassivPassive Cooling) |
| Noise level | 0 dBA |
| Warranty | 6 years |
| On the manufacturer's website | Accelero S1 Plus (DCACO-V470001-BL) |
Included in delivery
- Cooling block
- Mounting kit for Graphics card, see the compatibility list.
- 12x Heatsinks for memory chips and VRM
- 4x M2 Screw
- 4x Washer
- 4x 3.5 mm Spacer
- 4x 4.0 mm Spacer
- 1x G-1 Thermal Glue (2.0g Grey Compound)
- 1x G-1 Thermal Glue (2.0g White Compound)
- 1x Mixing Wand
- 1x VGA Bracket
- 1x Manual
| Model | ARCTIC S1 Plus Turbo Module |
| Material | Aluminium / Copper |
| Dimension (L x W x H) | 120 mm x 120 mm x 28.5 mm |
| Weight | 108 g |
| Fan | Fluid Dynamic Bearing / 9 Blades |
| Rotation speed | 0.07A (0.49W), 7V (620 RPM) / 0.12A (1.44W), 12V (1,000 RPM) |
| Noise level | 0.25 sone |
| Warranty | 6 years |
| On the manufacturer's website | S1 Plus Turbo Module (DCACO-V7100001-BLA01) |
Included in delivery
- The fan
- 1x 4-Pin Fan Power Adapter 7v/12v
- 6x Mounting Rubber Pin
- 1x Manual
- 1x MX-4 (Thermal Compound 0.5 g)
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Construction and design
Construction
The Accelero S1 Plus hasn't got a well manufactured copper base plate like you can find on other brand's cooler, there is no visible mirror affect at all. As you can see on the picture below, they pre-applied their MX-4 thermal compound onto the base plate. The heat is dissipated thanks to a set of 32 fins of 0.4 mm thickness using four copper heatpipes which have a diameter of 6 mm to offer a good cooling capacity.
Design
We did not see any manufacturing mistakes on our sample, and it seems that it has been well made which means that manufacturing is on a good level. The design is standard for this kind of passive coolers. As you can see from the image below the fans aren't packed as dense as you might find it on a cooler, which has been designed for active use only. A bigger distance between the fins casuses better convection of the air and therefore better passiv cooling capabilities.
Fan
ARTIC is selling the S1 Plus Turbo Module, and you guessed right, it is an accessory for this passive cooler to make it ative. What you will find is a 120 millimeters fan that has got nine white blades with speed ranging from 620 rpm to 1'000 rpm thanks to the 12 volt to 7 volt converter available in the bundle that allow you to control the rotation speed of your fan as well as the noise level of your graphic card. With a maximum speed of only 1'000 rpm this fan is still very silent. In the bundle you will find six (four + two actually, in the case your break two of them) mounting rubber pins to reduce vibration noise. Furthermore there is the MX-4 Thermal.
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Mounting
To mount the Accelero S1 Plus properly you'll find only one mounting kit
that fits both nVidia and AMD/ATI cards. Installing the cooler will actually not need a lot of force
and yonly four screws, four spacers.
As you can see, we managed to mount the Accelero S1 Plus on a card that is not on the compatibility list, the MSI Twin Frozr II using MSI's own PCB aka a non reference card. And it fits well, nothing to say. Ho well, as it is 5cm bigger than the pcb of the graphic card, make sure you have enough space into your case.
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Testsystem and test-routine
Testsystem
| Mainboard | ASUS P6TD Deluxe |
| Processor | Intel Core i7 920 2.66 GHz 4c/8t |
| Memory | Corsair Dominator TR3X3G1600C8D, 3 x 2 GByte |
| Graphics card | MSI HD 5850 Twin Frozr II |
| Coolers |
|
| Hard disk | Samsung Spinpoint F1 640 GByte |
| Power supply | Seasonic X-Series 750 Watts |
| Thermal grease | Pre-Applied Thermal Compound |
Test Setup
For ou tests, we used MSI's HD 5850 Twin Frozr II card, on which
we used different coolers with the same thermal compound Gelid Solutions GC-Extreme
applied again for each coolers. We used AMD's CCC 11.7 to control fan speeds and
GPU-Z for the monitoring part of both fan speeds and GPU temperatures. For the
Gelid Solutions Icy Vision 2 though we used a fan speed controller plugged to the fan
cable to control the speeds as it's not PWM. Following, the tests we did:
For the noise level results, we measured the noise level using a
decibel meter (Voltcraft SL-200) located at 1 meter away from the graphics card.
- Idle, temperature is taken after 5 minutes @ 30 %, 50 % and 100 % fan speed.
- OCCT GPU, temperature is taken after 10 minutes of OCCT 4.0 GPU Stress test @ 30 %, 50 % and 100 % fan speed. (1920 x 1080 (60 Hz), 1 Shader, Full Screen)
- Highest temperature reached under 3DMark Vantage @ 30 %, 50 % and 100 % fan speed.
- Highest temperature reached under 3DMark 11 @ 30 %, 50 % and 100 % fan speed.
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Idle / OCCT GPU
Fan Speed
As you can see in the graphic a passive cooler doesn't make any noise, well that's what it is made for and means it is noiseless. Now when you mount the S1 Plus Turbo Module on it, the kit stay very quiet thanks to the use of a larger fan and also that the maximum rotating speed of this one stay lower than the other coolers at 30 % fan speed which make it the quietest active cooler here.
Idle Temperature
In passive mode the gpu is hotter than 10°C in average than other coolers as you can see. When active mode it becomes 6° cooler but it doesn't reach as cool temps as other coolers.
Temperature under OCCT GPU
As espected the S1 Plus can't handle the heavy load that OCCT generate on the GPU, the test stopped after four minutes due to overheat, meanwhile as you can see even some active cooler failed this test. As for the active mode, when you mount the Turbo Module on it we can say that it performed very well, it is more efficient than all custom stock coolers we tested being way quieter, almost noiseless.
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3DMark Vantage / 3DMark 11
Fan Speed
As you can see in the graphic a passive cooler doesn't make any noise, well that's what it is made for and means it is noiseless. Now when you mount the S1 Plus Turbo Module on it, the kit stay very quiet thanks to the use of a larger fan and also that the maximum rotating speed of this one stay lower than the other coolers at 30 % fan speed which make it the quietest active cooler here.
3DMark Vantage
The maximum temperature we hit during passive cooling is 68°C which is not bad at all if you take a look at the values taken from other coolers. Again like we just saw with OCCT, when you upgrade it into an active cooler it is able to outperfrom any custom stock coolers we tested but stay behind the Icy Vision 2 and the Accelero Xtreme Plus II of course this is another league.
3DMark 11
Almost the same results as we just saw for the 3DMark Vantage test.
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Conclusion
| General | + | - | |
| The passive cooler for graphics card from ARCTIC that we just tested, has proven to be very good. Featuring a complete bundle, where you will be able to find all you need and boasting noiseless performance, it has been able to convince in passive as well as active cooling mode. We like the idea to upgrade the cooler to make it even more powerful and capable of handling heavy loads on high end graphics card. Doing so lowers the initial costs of the cooler if you only need it for normal use and desktop system. | -
Performance - Manufacturing quality - Bundle |
- Pre-applied thermal compound | |
| Installation | + | - | |
| Mounting the cooler is quite easy and doesn't take a lot of time. There is no need to tighten the screws very hard, like with the last cooler from ARCTIC we tested, to provide a very good pressure onto the graphics chip. The only thing that will need bit more time is the application and mixing of the two thermal grease. We did not test the cooling efficiency of those heatsinks and thermal pads/glue. Also note that the Accelero S1 Plus may not be compatible only with reference cards but also with custom PCBs like our MSI Twin Frozr II. | - Compatibility list | - You need to buy the S1 Plus Turbo Module to make it compatible with high end graphics cards | |
| Performance | + | - | |
|
If you drive the S1 Plus Turbo Module fan at twelve volts they aren't noisy at all, in fact even if it's no more passive, it remains very silent, which means that this was overall the quietest of all graphics cards coolers we've tested so far. Furhtermore it is astonishing that this very silent cooler is the one with the third most cooling capacity. Even in passive mode it is competing in a completely different league (high temps but noiseless) when you add a fan (in this case the one available in the S1 Plus Turbo Module upgrade kit) it has been able to outperform all custom stock coolers we've tested and it's not very far behing high end coolers like the Accelero Xtreme Plus II. |
- Very good performance - Noiseless at 7v - Very ery silent at 12v - Performance at 7v | ||
| Recommendation | + | - | |
|
The Accelero S1 Plus targets people who are looking for a noiseless desktop or office computers. When adding the S1 Plus Turbo Module to it, it is even able to target a larger market such as Gamers that want to play games having as less noise as possible. |
- Desktop PC - Gaming (with enough airflow) - Office PC |
- Overclocking |
The ARCTIC Accelero S1 PLus + Turbo Module receives very good five out of five stars.
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Author: Chrictian Ney c.ney@ocaholic.ch