Aerocool VM-101 no match for 9800XT

The specs for the VM-101 (Also known as the Chicken Head Cooler) say it will cool up to a 9800PRO. I have a ASUS 9800XT and though it would be worth a shot.
I knocked the roughness off the sink plate with some 600, 900 and polished a little with 1200 and 1500 just to achieve a little extra contact. Used AS5 and mounted the sink down-fashion directly in flow of a 90mm fan. I also dropped a Nexus temp prob into the side on the sink plate as close to the GPU as possible. No way to get on the GPU as the plate completely covers the gpus outter rim plate. Rig fires up temp slowly rise to 42C about normal Idle temps with the stock ASUS cooler. Nexus is reading 44C, yes higher then on die diode. Ok temp diode are almost always off anyway. Next fired up a simple Open GL world editor and started navigating around a little, spinning the world around madly. Temps quickly rise to 52C a little higher then the stock cooler. So I check the sink, it's working the pipes are really warm but it's giving it's all. I decided to restore to stock cooler as I found that it would more than likely not keep up when I hit it with a serious game.
I still think the Cooler is great and will work on one of my smaller cards with noisy fans. I just found it's limit!

Hmmmmm, I though the VM-101 was better than that.....

Apparently not.

Did you try reinstalling it or giving it time for the compound to settle in? You are probably right about it though. You did buy it, so try again and maybe the contact may be better.

Is that fanless? 52c isn't that bad at all, but try putting a slow moving 80mm fan on it.

That was with a 90mm moving a lot of air. This cooler has 2 junctions to deal with.
J1 - A metal sink plate sits on the die which I used AS5 and by the temp readings I got from it, the sink plate did an excellant job of pulling heat from the GPU. This sink plate is either cast aluminum or what might be thermaloy or similar alloy and it works. I had the probe on the outside near the 1 of mounting wings that screw it to the board.
J2 - The heat pipes plug into the sink plate forming a second junction which I used the coolers 25% silver compound. I was able to determine that the pipes were moving a lot of heat just by touching them.
Where the cooler probably fails to deliver is the pipe to fin contact. With more fins it might get a little better cooling. But with the heat that this thing generates it would need at least 1 more pipe and double the fin area. I have no intention of messing with the card for now but as I said will use it on another card at a later time.
I still think it's a great cooler, just not for 9800XTs nor 6800s.

I think I'll stay far away from that cooling solution

52c is not bad at all for a video card, most 9800's are in the upper 60's with stock cooling. Are you sure you are doing the same thing as when you had the stock cooler on? Also, is this a reading from a probe or from your card's sensor? Having the fan on the other side of the card, away from the probe, might make that difference.