GIGABYTE V-Power GH-UDUP21-VC Ball VGA Cooler Review

[J2T]

Gigabyte GH-UDUP21-VC 'V-Power'



Your video card is arguably the hottest running component in your PC. While CPU running temps have steadily gone down, it seems that GPU temps are on the climb. GPUs generally have a higher temperature threshold, but cooler is always better. Whether you overclock or not, let's see how well these aftermarket video coolers work and if they are worth the investment.

While most of us are familiar with Gigabyte's offerings in motherboards, many are not familiar that Gigabyte also offers cases and cooling products as well. Today I am reviewing the new Gigabyte GH-UDUP21-VC 'V-Power' video cooler. Let's see what the V-Power has in store.

Package and Contents

First, lets take a look at the packaging and contents.



One thing to say about the Gigabyte box for the V-Power is that it is extremely classy. You won't find any flashy graphics or scantily dressed girls on the box. You get a good view of the cooler itself and can clearly see that it supports SLi and Crossfire configurations.



On the back of the package, you can see the base of the heatsink and specifications in multiple languages. You can also see four small pictures at the top of various points of interest of the V-Power.



Upon opening the package, we see the plastic shell that houses and protects the heatsink and accessories, as well as the instruction manual.



The instruction manual includes instructions in 8 different languages. The above photo shows the English portion. The instructions are easy to read, compared to most seen today.



In the above photo, all of the contents of the box are shown. On the bottom is the V-Power itself and just above are the various accesories, such as the fan speed controller module, I/O brackets, memory heatsinks, and the fan duct.



Gigabyte includes a total of ten memory heatsinks (six standard size and four low profile). The purpose of the low profile heatsinks will be demonstrated during the installation section of this review. The standard heatsinks are pretty much identical to what is found in most video card cooler kits. In fact, they are identical to the Zalman VF700cu memory sinks, except for color.



Pictured is the fan speed controller module, which has hookups for up to two fans. Therefore if you had an ATi Crossfire or Nvidia SLi PC, you could control both heatsinks off one controller knob. One side has the power adapter connection, and the other side has the connections for the controller knob bracket and three pin fan power adapters.



Here is the whole fan speed controller unit assembled. Shown are the two power connectors for the fans, the four pin molex power connector, and the rear I/O panel controller knob. The knob allows a full range from off to full power, which in the case of the V-Power fan is 2000 rpm.



Now we will take a look at the heatsink itself before installing it. The bottom of the V-Power reveals the four heatpipes and the four mounting posts. Also notice the holes that line around the base, which allow airflow over the memory heatsinks.



Honestly, one of the first things I look at is the base of the heatsink. While the base is pretty flat, the finish is nowhere close to a mirror finish. I would like to see it a better finish than what it is. Also notice the gaps between the heatpipes. It may transfer heat better if the gaps were filled in with silver solder or similar material. This is generally what you see on CPU heatsinks.



The heatpipes fan out and are mated to the cooling fins on either end of the Gigabyte V-Power, as seen here. Along the top, there is a black mesh covering that gives the heatsink a very nice look.



The 90mm fan is rated at a max of 25dba and it is silent, even at maximum speeds. The fan also has three white LEDs for aesthetics.

Installation

Now lets move onto the installation of the Gigabyte V-Power.



As mentioned earlier, Gigabyte includes some lower profile memory heatsinks, which is due to the lack of clearance towards the top of the heatsink when it is mounted. After setting the memory heatsinks on and placing the V-Power heatsink on top to check the clearance, the memory has adequate cooling.



Installation is really straightforward. Simply line up the four mounting posts with the holes in your card and screw in the four spring loaded screws. There is no mounting bracket or any other device to deal with.



When you assemble the exhaust assembly, the instructions don't really make it clear to tighten the screws down. Be sure to flatten the rubber washers or the I/O bracket will not match your video card's I/O panel. This is not really a big deal, but it did create some confusion for me.



So now we have the heatsink installed on the card along with the exhaust guard. I had to remove the top support bar from my XFX 7800 GT due to interference with the heatpipes. Installed, it's a very nice looking cooler; granted this is a personal opinion, so your's may differ.



Installing the card into the PC is easy, of course, but since it is a two slot cooling solution, it obviously takes up some room. Gigabyte lists that it supports Sli or Crossfire, but you can see just how close this second video card would be to the primary video card, so effectiveness is unknown.



The next step was finding a location to mount the fan speed controller unit. The fan speed controller obviously leaves a few more wires to route and may make the inside of your case slightly more cluttered. The controller knob uses a PCI slot, so a total of three slots are used for this cooling solution.



Above is a photo of the V-Power in action showing the white LEDs. On aesthetics alone, I am quite impressed with Gigabyte's offering.

Testing

The video card used in testing was a XFX 7800GT. The coolers used in this comparison test were the stock XFX and Zalman VF700cu. Arctic Silver Ceramique was used for all three coolers and each were allowed a minimum of one week continuous running to allow the thermal paste to settle in. To obtain the readings, I used RivaTuner's monitoring module to record temperatures while running 3DMark05. First I took recordings at the factory settings for my 7800GT. All readings were taken in Celcius.



It wasn't surprising that both the V-Power and VF700cu easily beat the stock cooler by a large margin. The V-Power edges surpassed the VF700cu by two degrees. I honestly expected a little better performance from Gigabytes cooler here, but they are still pretty good temperatures. With the temperatures reaching quite high at stock settings, I didn't feel comfortable running any overclocked speeds on the stock XFX cooler. Now let's test these coolers with more heat from overclocked speeds.



I am just amazed and impressed. The V-Power outperforms the Zalman by a large margin. I had questioned the validity of my results, due to the large margin of difference. So I retested approximiately ten times and found the same results. At this point, I was convinced that the Gigabyte V-Power performs very well under high heat conditions.


Conclusion

To be honest I wasn't sure what to expect of a cooling product from Gigabyte, but I have come away quite impressed. They seemed to have done their homework and have a winning product on their hand. I think the V-Power can go toe to toe with the more well known high end coolers from Arctic Cooling and Zalman.

Reviewers Rating: 9/10

Positives:
* Quiet
* Excellent performance
* SLi and Crossfire compatability

Negatives
* Size - takes up to 3 PCI slots
* Rough heatsink base

[ciduser]

Outstanding review . Keep up the good work.

Cid

[rhino56]

Definately a great review. excellent pics, im really suprised how much better it did over the zalman

[Nettles]

Nice review man! BTW, is this cooler only for the 7800?

[J2T]

Nope, its for both ATi and Nvidia cards. According to their site and the back of the box it supports: Nvidia Geforce 6800, 7800 and 7900 series along with ATi Radeon X1800, X1900 and X1950 series.

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[dunk3r23]

Amazing review. I haven't seen such detailed review before. Good job!!!