Iceberq4 and Iceberq4 Pro

May 16, 2003 admin Uncategorized 0

SUMMARY: A nice package for VGA cooling.

Ice

The good guys at Vantec were nice enough to send their VGA GPU coolers, the Iceberq4 and Iceberq4 Pro, to us for a test. These are all copper heatsinks that ship with:

  • Four Ramsinks
  • Thermal Grease and Tape (for Ramsinks)
  • Plastic Pushpins
  • Four pin to three pin power plug

These heatsinks can be used for the following videocards:

  • Iceberq4 Pro
    • nVidia GeForce 4 Ti 4200, 4600 & 4800 Series
    • nVidia GeForce FX Series
  • Iceberq4
    • ATi Radeon 8500, 9000, 9500, 9700 & 9800 Deries
    • nVidia GeForce 2 Series
    • nVidia GeForce 3 Ti, MX Series
    • nVidia GeForce 4 MX Series

For other use, the following measurements may help:

Iceberq4 & Pro Key Measurements

Heatsink

Hole Distance

HS Diameter

Longest Length

Iceberq4 Pro

80 mm

65 mm

89 mm

Iceberq4

55 mm

62 mm

75 mm

As an extra added attraction, the Iceberqs include a two blue LEDs in the fan:

LEDs

The fan is fairly quiet, although high pitched – I could not get a reading with a Radio Shack sound meter 8″ from the fan’s intake.

The base is well finished and polished:

Base

When I ran my nail over it, I could not feel or hear any ridges. Polished does not equal flat, however – I found that the Iceberq4 was not particularly flat and performance suffered as a result.

THE TEST

The Iceberqs were tested on the Large Die Simulator. Most GPU package sizes are in the 25-35mm range – the Large Die Simulator measures 31 mm.

TEST RESULTS – Large Die Simulator – 31 x 31 mm

Heatsink
Die Temp
Ambient Temp
Delta
C/W
Iceberq4 Pro, 4863 rpm, 29.9 watts
39.2 C
21.7 C
17.5 C
0.59
Iceberq4, 5976 rpm, 29.8 watts
43.8 C
22.3 C
21.5 C
0.72

To give some idea of what smaller die sizes can do, I ran both on the Small Die Simulator:

TEST RESULTS – Small Die Simulator – 10 x 13 mm

Heatsink
Die Temp
Ambient Temp
Delta
C/W
Iceberq4 Pro, 4872 rpm, 30.0 watts
52.9 C
22.0 C
30.9 C
1.05
Iceberq4, 5941 rpm, 29.9 watts
52.8 C
21.2 C
31.6 C
1.03

Delta = CPU temp – Ambient Temp
C/W = Delta / CPU Watts

Interpreting C/W: For every watt (CPUw) that the CPU
consumes, the HSF will limit the CPU’s temperature rise to (C/W x CPUw)
plus the temperature at the HSF’s fan inlet. For example, at an ambient temp of 25 C, a C/W of 0.25 with a CPU radiating 50 watts means that CPU temp will increase 50 x 0.25 = 12.5 C over ambient temp, or 37.5 C. The lower the C/W, the better.

Die Simulator results indicate that for a large package GPU, the Iceberq4 Pro will limit GPU temp over ambient by 0.6 C for each GPU watt and the Iceberq4 will limit GPU temp over ambient by 0.7 C for each GPU watt. As package size shrinks, the cooling challenge increases markedly (as we’ve seen for CPUs). For a small package size, performance worsens so that the Iceberqs will limit GPU temp over ambient by about 1 C for each GPU watt.

CONCLUSIONS

Vantec’s Iceberq4 VGA Cooling Kit is a nice package for GPU cooling. Simulator results indicate OK cooling performance for large GPU package sizes.

Thanks again to Vantec for sending this our way. The Iceberqs are available from The Heatsink Factory.

Email Joe