Arctic Cooling Accelero Twin Turbo 6990 Cooler Review

Each of the copper base sections ships protected underneath a layer of plastic. These obviously will need removed before applying the thermal paste. We immediately noticed the extremely high standards of engineering, with a very smooth base on both sides of the cooler.

We grabbed the nearest HD6990 at hand, which in this case was a Sapphire card.

Removing the HD6990 reference cooler is not a difficult process. First remove two screws from the backplate section as shown above. Make sure not to misplace any of these.

Remove all the screws from the rear of the card as shown above, taking care not to damage the PCB underneath the protective cover. Arctic Cooling state it is better to remove the PCB from the cooler with the backplate in place, but it is simple either way.

The PCB should unlock from the cooler without much effort, just be careful when pulling the two apart. Then remove the fan header from the PCB. Clean the two GPU cores carefully to remove any remains of the thermal paste. It is worth pointing out that some of the thermal pads may have adhered to the PCB components rather than the cooler section, so remove these also and reapply to the reference cooler. Keep all the screws for the fitting of the Accelero Twin Turbo 6990 and store the reference cooler back in the AMD HD6990 box.

Above, the Accelero Twin Turbo 6990 cooler (left), beside the AMD reference cooler.

Be sure to remove all traces of thermal paste from the two GPU cores and any of the sticky thermal pads which may have adhered to the PCB components.

Above, apply the three 2mm spacers to the central section of the Twin Turbo 6990 cooler. These are adhesive on one side and should stick to the cooler – just be sure they are positioned exactly right for later. Don't rush this stage.

Gather all the thermal pads and start sticking them to the cooler, both sides have plastic protective covers, so be sure to remove them all.

Above, all the thermal pads adhered to the card. Next apply the supplied high grade MX4 paste evenly to both copper blocks. Arctic Cooling have supplied a perfect amount, so be careful to ensure that you balance the application.

Arctic suggest using a ruler for lining the cooler to the PCB, but we really don't understand why this would be needed. We suggest lining it up by eye and paying close attention to the central section – those 2mm spacers underneath need to be aligned perfectly for the screws later. Both GPU core sections will ‘slot' into the holes without much effort as shown above.

Lastly, reattach the protective backplate and mount it in place with all the screws. You don't need the two screws for the I/O plate anymore, but be sure to store them away in case you need to use the reference cooler again at a later date.

Above, the cooler mounted firmly in place. It is a heavy beast, adding 820 grams to the overall weight of the card.

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