Arctic Cooling Accelero Twin Turbo 6990 Cooler Review

1. Introduction2. Arctic Cooling Accelero Twin Turbo 6990 Cooler3. Installing the cooler4. Accelero Twin Turbo 6990 (Super High Res Gallery)5. Performance Testing6. Closing Thoughts7. View All Pages

The AMD HD6990 has sold well since it was released, with limited stock still in the channel today. As we said earlier in the review, the performance of this discrete card is without question, however the reference cooler is noisy and struggles to maintain sub 90c temperatures under load. Always a concern after spending £550 on a video card. We always question AMD using those tiny red fans, but our concerns have fallen on deaf ears.

Arctic have released the Accelero Twin Turbo 6990 to redress this problem, offering the high end AMD enthusiast audience an alternative solution without the need to opt for watercooling. The Accelero Twin Turbo 6990 performs better than we thought it would, reducing temperatures by 4c when idle and around 23c when gaming. These are the kind of the results that the enthusiast audience will want to see. We also really do admire the engineering standards, because it is a millimetre perfect fitting.

As well as improving thermal performance, the Twin Turbo 6990 manages to reduce noise emissions to around 30 dBa when gaming. It is barely audible and will be likely drown out completely by several case fans in a performance oriented system.

So far there are no downsides, but sadly this cooler is a significant investment, with a recommended retail price of $149.99. There are no UK retailers stocking the cooler yet, but we would make an educated guess of around £100 inc vat in the UK. This would make the total cost of HD6990 ownership around the £650 mark, which might be tough to swallow for many. Compared to the nearest competitor however, you would still be saving £50 against a reference cooled GTX590. In that regard it doesn't seem like such a bad deal.

Pros:

• Class leading cooling performance, reducing temperatures by 20c+.
• Almost silent.
• Easy to install.
• Very high engineering standards.

Cons:

• It is $150 (around £100).

Kitguru says: One of the best and most capable coolers on the market, just be prepared to pay for it.

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