TennMax BGA Coolers and Stealth Fighters put to the test!!!
First of all this will not be your standard "Dood, with a TennMax Cooler. . I was able to get and extra 4mhz" type of review. . . they've simply been done to DEATH.
Every single card that comes through the Hypothermia Labs has a TennMax Cooler installed on it within 15 minutes of being on the premises. There are several reasons for this, all of which will be covered in this review. I have to address a few things I have personally heard in other reviews before we get started:
1.) complaint "Geez, dood. . those cost like $20 bucks. . . That's alot of money!!"
response It sure doesn't seem like much weighing the benefits vs. the damage heat can cause your system and your video card. Although heat doesn't always cause a part to fail. . it is the number one reason that CPU's video card and other parts fail early or have a shortened life span. So I ask, is your new $250.00 - $299.00 video card worth prolonging it's life?? You bet.
2.) complaint "It voids my warranty. . . . . "
response Putting BETTER cooling on your card may "VOID" your warranty, but then again so does cracking the OEM seal on your new Dell P3-1gig machine when you add a stick of RAM at home. . . so, I tend not to use this as a deciding factor when doing a review. I am not reviewing the warranty. So as a note of caution, we mention the fact that it does in fact VOID your warranty. . . but it is not a factor to how well these things cool your video card.
3.) And the final complaint is MINE. . . . Somewhere in the back of EVERYONES mind it bothers them, however slight, that when a product review is being done that you don't get to see ANY pictures of the product or the process involved.
Honestly, doesn't it get you thinking a little when people do a game/hardware review and the only screenshots/photos are the ones floating around the net?? Or they simply use photos/graphs/benchmarks provided by the manufacturer. This REALLY bothers me when its a "SUPER GIGA 29 VIDEOCARD ROUNDUP". It just makes you wonder doesn't it?? O.K. , that's my rants/complaints. . . lets get cracking!!!!
What we used
We cracked out the cards for this one. And we have a "few" lying around. Hypothermia is trying to do a broad spectrum analysis of the general gaming community so we used the following:
ATI All-in-Wonder Pro, V3-3500TV for the TV in/out video editing crowd ( since the TV tuners themselves add a significant amount of heat due to the close proximity of the Chip itself and the TV tuner box on the card. You sure would think that someday a video card maker would put one on each side.
V3-3000 AGP and the TNT2. . see how these two AGP Kings fair against one another. Notice how similar the two boards look. . .
Voodoo2 12 meg board and V2-12meg SLI. The obvious factor here is airflow restriction, added heat from a second card and tight quarters. The not so obvious is the long term effects of heat, as we will show you.
