[W1zzard]

Introduction

I would like to thank Evercool for supplying us with the test sample.

Cooler Dimension	162 x 112 x 44mm
Speed	2000±10% RPM
Heatsink Dimension	145 x 112 x 38mm
DC Fan Size	80 x 80 x 10mm
Heatsink Material	Ever Lubricate bearing type (Long life bearing)
Rated Voltage	12 VDC
Weight	300 g
Compatibility ATI	RADEON 9000/9000 PRO RADEON 9200/9200 PRO RADEON 9500/9500 RADEON 9600/9600 SE/9600PRO/9600XT RADEON 9700/9700 PRO/9800 PRO/9800XT RX300/600/800 ATI Radeon X1300 Series ATI Radeon X1600 Series ATI Radeon X1800 Series
Compatibility NVIDIA	GeForce 4 MX 420/400/460 GeForce 4 MX 440 SE/440 8X GeForce FX 5200/5500/5600/5700 GeForce 4Ti 4200/4200 8X GeForce 4Ti 4400/4600/4800 GeForce FX 5600 ULTRA/5700 ULTRA GeForce FX 5900/5900 XT GeForce FX 5950 ULTRA GeForce FX 6600/6600GT GeForce 6800/6800GT GeForce 7800/7800GT

The cooler should also be compatible to the X1900 series, which uses the same mounting holes as the X1800.

Packaging

Oh no, a blister pack. Usually this means I cut myself and bleed to death before completing the review. Also this makes it hard to put the cooler back in the package and store it if you don't use it for a while since the packaging is usually pretty messed up after opening it.

Box contents:

• VGA cooler
• Thermal paste
• Screw package
• Instruction manual

To protect the contact area of the heatsink a piece of transparent foil is sticked to the copper base. It comes off easily and leaves no residue.

Flatness

The surface tests show that the baseplate is slightly convex, the center is a bit higher than the outside. On the surface you can see small milling marks. However, contact tests later on show that the contact is very good, so nothing to worry about here.

A closer look

The cooler's casing is made from plastic which has a metallic paint job.


If you look at the two empty holes it seems that Evercool has designed this cooler to be made into a new version which has four heatpipes.


These aluminum fins are dissipating the heat while the fan is blowing air over them.

Installation

The installation of the Evercool Turbo2 is fairly easy. All you have to do is look up where you have to screw in the mounting posts in the manual.



Next you put in the mounting posts, put your card on them with a rubber washer in between. Rubber washer on the other side and screw down the spring nuts.

Do not screw down the spring nuts too tight. If you do that the mounting posts will screw out when removing the cooler. It is sufficient if the spring is fully compressed and the rubber is slightly pressed together.



One problem I had was that on my X1800XL the manual's "D" position mounting holes did not line up with my video card. After contacting Evercool they said that some ATI X1000 Series video cards use non-standard holes and that in such a case the two "C" mounting holes should be used.


A disadvantage of the Evercool Turbo 2 is that it does not directly cool the memory chips. However, there is a good deal of airflow going over the memory chips from the fan.

Performance

After the initial installation the heatsink was immediately removed and the contact area was inspected. Even with just two screws the contact is very good.

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For the overclocking tests I used my ATITool overclocking utility version 0.25 Beta 14. On the X1000 series artifact scanning isn't working (yet), so I used several tests including 3DMark2003 and 2005 to test for artifacts.

Temperature was measured with one case side open by reading the on-die thermal diode of our ATI Radeon X1800 XL PCI-Express. Idle temperature was measured after letting Windows sit one hour at the desktop. Load temperature was measured after running 3DMark2003 looped for one hour. Both at the card's default clock of 500 / 495 MHz.

On the X1800 the fan speed is varied based on temperature. The stock fan was running at 73% under load and 36% when idle. To have another value to compare to, I used ATITool to force the stock fan to always run at 100%.

Arctic Silver Lumière was used as thermal interface material for the GPU core in all installations. Lumière is a specially engineered testing compound - it needs no settle in time to reach its maximum performance, but it's not designed for permanent use.

Radeon X1800 XL PCI-E	Maximum Core Clock	Fan Noise	Temperature Load	Temperature Idle
Stock cooler - dynamic fan	561 MHz	46 dbA	73°C	62°C
Stock cooler - fan 100%	563 MHz	62 dbA	67°C	48°C
Turbo 2 - 12V	570 MHz	47 dbA	56°C	46°C
Turbo 2 - 6V	567 MHz	33 dbA	63°C	46°C

While the temperatures are a great deal better than the stock cooler the overclocking does not go up so much. Sure the increase is there but it's only about 10 MHz.

The biggest advantage over the stock cooler is that the Turbo 2 is doing its job with a lot less noise as you can read on the next page.

Fan Noise

In order to give a measurement of how loud the fan is, we used an IEC651 Type II sound level meter on the dbA slow setting.

The distance between fan and sound level meter was 10 cm. Please note that this is very little, compared to the "standard" measurements, which are made at 1 m distance. We had to do this, to get proper readings with our sound level meter, because we obviously can't spend thousands of dollars on audio measuring equipment.

The cooler was connected to an external lab PSU. 12V is the standard rated fan speed. For easier comparison we also tested the fan noise at 50% (6V).



Wow. If you are looking for "silent", then the Evercool Turbo 2 should be on top of your list. As additional testing I hooked the fan up to 5V, which was still enough to keep the X1800 in safe temperature levels under load. The fan was so quiet that I had to put my ear about 10 cm away from the cooler to even hear it spinning.

Value and Conclusion

	With a price of just $20 this cooler is coming at a very good price.
	Very Quiet Very affordable Good performance Wide compatibility Easy to install
	Air not vented outside the case Does not cool memory
9.2	If you are looking for an alternative to Arctic Cooling's coolers you should check out the Evercool Turbo 2. It offers good performance, very quiet operation and a good price. When you are building a system with focus on low-noise instead of performance, this cooler is actually the best on the market. At 5V it's whisper quiet (technically a lot quieter than a whisper). Being able to be used on pretty much all cards from NVIDIA and ATI is another plus. Other manufacturers have a load of different products from which you have to get the right one, and find it in stock. Evercool even includes some "universal" mounting tabs which should let you use this on any card that has mounting holes. However, there are a few minor drawbacks. The memory chips are not directly cooled, only by airflow. Based on our testing this seems to be sufficient. Another point is that hot air is not exhausted on the backside of the case so you may need an additional case fan to get rid of the heat.