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The Shroud
Although the shroud design looks very similar to the NV Silencer 5 cooler we reviewed in the past, it's quite different underneath. The fan is now located at the top right corner and it blows the air downwards.
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Underside of the shroud |
The shroud split open |
As mentioned earlier, the cooler does not exhaust hot air out the back of the case. Instead, the shroud is designed to direct the exhaust air downwards. Take a look at the first picture above. It shows you the underside of the shroud, and the space for the heatsink fins.
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The fan draws cool air from outside and directs them downwards, over the heatsink fins. The hot air is then exhausted at the end of the shroud. Unfortunately, this means the hot air gets recycled back into the case.
There's also a small vent off to the right of the shroud. This vent provides some air flow for the voltage regulators which get very hot.
The design honestly doesn't look very promising on paper. Well, we will have to see what the test results show later in the review.
The Fan
At the first glance, this 6 cm fan looks like infamous YS Tech TMD fans with the motor located outside the center hub. But this is a conventional fan with a central motor.
Top: Fan label |
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Compared to the old NV Silencer 5's fan, this is a lower powered fan. Rated at only 0.13A, it has a power output of 1.56W and spins up to a maximum speed of 2000 RPM. According to Arctic Cooling, that gives it an air flow of 9.82 CFM or 16.7 m3/h.
Thanks to its lower speed, as well as its fluid dynamic bearing, it should have a much lower noise level than the fan used in the NV Silencer 5.
The Heatsink
As mentioned earlier, the heatsink is not made entirely of copper. In fact, only part of the base is made from copper. The rest of the heatsink base and all of the fins are aluminium. The fins were soldered to the base with aluminium tabs providing additional support for each fin. This is a proven method, as shown with the old Thermalright SK-6 heatsink.
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Heatsink |
Fins & Base |
You can also see the three heatpipes running across the aluminium fins. The heatpipes improve the performance of the heatsink by spreading heat from the center to the peripheral fins. This is one reason why they used a base made of both copper and aluminium. The other reason is, of course, to keep the weight of the cooler down.
Memory Heatspreader
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The Accelero X1 comes with a J-shaped memory heatspreader for cards with memory chips on the back. Like most of the heatsink, it's made of aluminium.
It has four recesses, which serve as contact points for the memory chips. But if you have any surface-mounted components near the memory chips, they may interfere with the installation of the heatspreader.
In such cases, you will need to use thick thermal pads to raise the height of the heatspreader and allow it to clear those surface-mounted components.
