Iceberq 6 MiniReview - Quite the decent air cooler

s1rrah

hey .

wanted to post a mini performance review of the vantec iceberq 6 air cooler on the chance anyone out there is considering options for a low cost vga air cooler.

i wanted to do the 1.5 vmod on my 7900GT and so read a bunch of reviews on three of the seemingly most prominent vga coolers, zalmanVF900, arctic silencer 5 rev. 3, and the iceberq 6.

most reviews placed the silencer and iceberq a bit ahead of the zalman; also, i saw the highest temp difference between stock and aftermarket when using the iceberq 6 and so i decided to try the iceberq 6 first (it's only 28 bucks or so). some reviewers had 15 to 20 degree load temp drops at stock speeds with a 7900GT (the silencer was real close to these numbers as well at certain review spots.

here's what the cooler looks like mounted:



i had decided on a test format prior to mounting the card; the only numbers i had was testing at a slight overclock. here's what i found after mounting the card and testing:

testing was 15mins geoforms demo running 1280x1024 with max settings; ambient room temps around 25c.

evga 7900GT (stock volts)
overclock: 567/863
---------------------------------------
stock cooler idle: 45
sock cooler load: 65 to 67
-----------------------------
iceberq 6 idle: 37
iceberq 6 load: 49


evga 7900GT (with 1.5 vmod)
overclock: 700/852
---------------------------------------
stock cooler idle: N/A
stock cooler load: N/A
-----------------------------
iceberq 6 idle: 41
iceberq 6 load: 61

with the iceberq 6, i was able to run at 1.5volts with a pretty decent vcore overclock of 700 and ended up back at the temps i had with my stock cooler prior to the 1.5 vmod and overclock.

for 28 dollars ... i can't think of a better vga cooler one could get into, barring the silencer 5 rev. 3 (which i may still buy and compare against this). my findings of a general 15+ degrees difference at load over stock cooling was right in line with what i've seen on review sites.

one thing that i've noticed is how effective the exhaust system on the iceberq 6 is; at load testing ... the air that's being pushed out the back of the card is extremely hot; i had no idea how much heat the overclocked 7900GT actually generated. my avg case temps have dropped a degree or two as well.

like i said, at 25 bucks on sale, the silencer 5 is quite tempting to purchase and compare. will post side by sides if i do it this weekend.

Burton560

nice, and welcome to the forum!

montypythizzle

nice :P
wow that is hell of an overclock i wish they would just make gpu coolers as big as cpu coolers so u can have the option to have a tall dumbass looking cooler on it that does helluva job

redcow

nice little short review. good for lazy people like me :-p

s1rrah

i agree. i read somewhere that somebody managed to hack/strap a scythe ninja onto a 7900GT using zip ties. funny.

i'm already having ideas for modding this VGA cooler. it puts out *some* air ... but that little rotary thing just can't really blow too hard so i'm thinking about removing the rotary fan, enlarging the air intake whole above where the fan sat and strapping a high output 50 or 60mm fan on the side pushing into the air intake. would work just like the rotary only push about 3 times the air. the copper heatsink is quite large and had good surface area so i'm sure this would nock at least 8 degrees of load temps ...

will post process pics, etc. when i do it ...

millerm277

A quick mod to increase the airflow would be to just chop out that grill on the fan exhaust.

s1rrah

true ... that would result in a slight increase ...

but what i'm talking about is a whole other order of increase ...

:)

i mean something like a tornado strapped on the side that i could hook up to a controller for silence during normal usage and full blast when gaming with headphones on.

well, maybe not a tornado ... but something highoutput that would let me up the volts to 1.55 or more.

or ... <hmmm> ... maybe a small tornado afterall ...

and *then*, snipping out the grill will even be more important ... thanks for the tip; didn't consider that.