Cooler Xtreme : Coolers
: Graphics / VGA Cooler : Full Review Of Blue Orb
More installation
Another possible
problem is the blue orb will take up a PCI slot. While I didn't think this
was a big deal at all, some might need all the slots they can get. So if
you’re planning on getting a blue orb make sure to plan ahead.
Here's the final
result:
One final note
about installation, before we get onto testing. The installation instructions
included with the orb are written in somewhat bad English, but you should
be able to figure out what they mean, if you need them at all.
Performance
To test the blue
orb I first powered down the test PC for 30 minutes to let it fully cool
off. After the pc was cool I booted it up and ran Quake III Arena demo001
in a continuous loop for 30 more minutes. At the end of the time I recorded
the temperature from my compunurse. After all that was done I repeated the
same steps for the blue orb.
Stock 64.4º C
Blue Orb 54.9º C
As you can see
the blue orb did in fact do its job. Just about a 10º celcius drop, which
is an 18º F difference. And with the blue orb I was able to overclock the
card from retail 120 Core / 150 Memory to a stable 140 core / 187 memory.
The only cooling I used was the orb because I wanted to make sure I was
testing the orb and not the cooling system in the test rig, so it's probable
that you could O/C the card higher with a little more cooling.
