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Product:
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Sytrin KuFormula VF1 Plus VGA Cooler |
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Price:
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$42 (CDN) / $37 (U.S)
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Supplied By:
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Sytrin Corporation
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Author:
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Skaal-Tel
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Date:
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May 10th, 2006
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Rating:
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Click image for larger view
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Click image for larger view
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Setting the video card aside and moving back to the bracket and cooling, simply attach 6 screws and you're ready to go.
The instructions are a big help for this step. The PCI bracket has a built-in 3 speed switch attached, allowing you
to choose the noise level preference. Construction and the wires are of good quality, and provide for many interesting
modding opportunities. In any case, simply plug the 3-pin fan into the circuit board and the Molex into your power
supply and you're good to go. The original fan plug on the video card is left empty, so any video card fan monitoring
software you may have installed will be useless. The only downside to this particular setup is that must sacrifice the
slot directly beneath the video card. Most aftermarket coolers and in fact most high end video card coolers are already
2 slot solutions, so this does not come as a great surprise.
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Click image for larger view
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Click image for larger view
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The fan provided is of unorthodox design at least on the PC market. Most PC fans are the familiar 80mm x 80mm variety which
are cheap, noisy, and prone to bearing failure. The KuFormula fan is a blower style, which in this case draws air from
beneath itself and sends it 90 degrees to the side into the heatsink. This particular fan has even got rubber motor
mounts to reduce vibration noise, and when on its lowest setting is nearly completely noiseless. The sound of my
already slowed 120mm CPU fan was more easily heard. When set to medium or high speed, the fan makes a different sort of
sound than usually heard and is lower pitched and more "growly." Nonetheless, at full speed, it is still quieter than a
full speed 120mm fan, for instance.
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Click image for larger view
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Installed in my PC (ignore the dust please!) the KuFormula fan looks good, with a fairly commanding presence in what is
usually quite boring case window space. It draws cool air from the bottom of the case and sends it over the RAM sinks
and main heatsink, but how well does it cool, you may ask? Time to find out.
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Idle - Click image for larger view
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Idle Low - Click image for larger view
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Testing:
The old cooler was a pain in the neck, and when at idle, usually sat around 47-50 degrees. When gaming, I had seen
temperatures as high as 65-75 degrees Celsius. Fine if you don't intend to overclock, but it's a baseline 6800 and I had
to find a performance boost somewhere.
With the KuFormula VF1 Plus installed and given time to reach a steady base temperature, I was happy to see 44 degrees.
3 degrees, not bad! That's at the lowest fan speed setting, however so let's see how it does when the fan speed is adjusted.
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Idle Medium - Click image for larger view
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Idle High - Click image for larger view
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At medium fan speed, which is louder, but not yet obnoxious for a desktop PC the temperature dropped to 41 degrees
down 6 degrees from the stock cooler but we still have room to grow. At high fan speed, temperature drops a further 3
degrees almost 10 from stock, and only a few degrees warmer than ambient. Pretty impressive for air cooling on a video
card.
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After playing a few games and running 3DMark05 for a couple loops, I came across a steady temperature of 42 degrees at
high fan speed. Considering the card's previous meteoric spikes in heat when gaming, I was impressed. The noise was a
little much for me to handle however, so back down to low I went. Happy with the results, I decided to see how far I
could go overclocking with the fan speed set to low. I ended up boosting speeds from stock settings of 350 / 700 to
370 / 740. After running 3DMark05 a few times, and spending a few hours gaming with nary a lockup, I was quite happy
with the results. To sum up, essentially, with this fan setup, I can run my card overclocked and under heavy load with
the same temperature as it used to idle at, and also have a quieter system. What more could I ask for?
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Conclusion:
The Sytrin KuFormula VF1 Plus VGA Cooler is a new and exciting design for a video card heatsink. I've never seen anything
quite like this kit, and certainly nothing on the same level of quality. Aftermarket video card coolers is a competitive market,
and while this cooler is not as flashy as some, it certainly does get the job done. I would be happy to recommend this
cooler over any other I've seen to date. For essentially the same price as any other air cooling setup this kit sets
itself apart with crystal clear instructions, bulletproof packaging, solid construction, excellent cooling, and unique
design. The only downside is taking up a bit more space than the stock fan and even then, you could probably still fit
an SLI setup with two of these and a little creative maneuvering with the fans. Overall I was pleased with the
Sytrin KuFormula VF1 Plus VGA Cooler and award MTB's Seal of Approval with a final rating of
9.5 out of 10. If you have any questions regarding this
review be sure to visit the Sytrin Corporation website for more
information or discuss them in our forums.
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Pros:
- Fits almost every video card on the market
- Each piece of the kit is of high quality
- Provided RAM sinks
- Provided fan
- Heatpipe design and ducting for better cooling
- Clear instructions
- Quiet or powerful fan with speed control
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Cons:
- Takes up two slots
- May be too difficult for a novice to install
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