Introduction

From the manufacturer Arctic Cooling:

Today we test Revision 2 of the Arctic Cooling ATI Silencer 5 which is designed for the PCI-Express Radeon X800 and X850. The cooler can be used on ATI X800 (R430) (XL), ATI X850 (R480) PRO, XT, XT PE.

The cooler does not fit some Sapphire X800 cards where two capacitors block the cooler installation.

Packaging

Box contents:

• VGA cooler with fan and screws
• Backside cooling plate
• PCI slot cover
• Instruction manual
• Arctic Cooling Sticker

The first revision used a heatsink base which was higher than the surrounding copper, resulting in less than optimal flatness. Revision two does not use this, so the surface is much flatter.



In the past, Arctic has been including thermal paste with their VGA coolers. I don't know why they are using a thermal pad now, maybe too many users messed up the application.

The thermal pad is protected by a small plastic cover. Unfortunately our sample got treated bad on its way and the pad got damaged, maybe there is an issue with Arctic's packing. However, damage this small should not have any effect on the cooling performance, if you consider that the mounting pressure will compress that pad a lot anyway.

Installation

As always when installing a VGA Silencer, installation is very easy and takes only a few minutes.



The second revision is using thermal pads to improve contact with the memory chips. Contact is excellent now, Revision 1 had a few problems with it. It is easy to get the thermal pads off when removing the cooler.



The fan connector cable is a bit long, but it is possible to hide the excess cable under the cooling fan.

Some motherboards, like the DFI LanParty NF4, place the chipset fan right under the video card. Arctic's big fan casing is reducing the air flow on some of these boards. On the LanParty it helps if you move the video card to the second PCI-E x16 slot.