Thermaltake Schooner

Introduction

Our sample was provided by MadMoxx. Thank you.

From the manufacturer Thermaltake:

• High performance fanless GPU cooler, 0dB cooling solution, reduce total system noise
• No cooling fan is required, stay cool without suffering the fan noise
• Much better heat dissipation is delivered by larger heat sink surface
• Internal and external heatpipe modules dissipate the heat efficiently.
• Universal clip for both nVIDIA and Ati

Weight	514g
Heatsink Material	Aluminum
Dissipation Area	Main front heatsink: 1159cm² Main back heatsink: 446cm² External heatpipe module: 516cm²
Heatpipe	Internal: 5mm x 2 and copper base External: 5mm x 2 and copper fins
Compatible with	Both nVIDIA / ATi video cards for AGP or PCI Express

Thermaltake has been creative - the Schooner is the first VGA cooler which uses a heatpipe to transport heat to the outside of the case.

By the way, a "schooner" is a sailing ship with at least two masts - usually a big one and a second smaller one. Schooners were first used by the Dutch in the 16th and 17th century.



This is how it works:
The GPU is located under the front heatsink (1). Some heat is dissipated there.
Part of the heat is transferred to the backside heatsink using two heatpipes (2).
The remaining heat is transferred to the external heatsink via another two heatpipes (3).

Packaging

Box contents:

• Front and Back Heatsink
• Front and Back Heatsink Base
• Two clip plates
• Instruction Manual
• Internal Heatpipe Module
• External Heatpipe Module
• Thermal Paste
• Three screw packages A, B and C

The base finish is slightly concave and from production, there are some milling marks visible. The 'knife test' shows a good amount of light shining through near the edges. Our contact test later will confirm that.