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The Arctic Accelero Xtreme III is by no means a new product, nor is it earth shattering in concept. Realistically, it exists to replace reference coolers, and provide compatibility across as many products and generations as possible. Originally released in the time of the GTX 680 and HD 7970, the Arctic ACX is ancient by tech terms, however old in this case does not mean obsolete, quite the contrary. One of the few components that can be expected to never be obsoleted in computers today is a good cooling solution. Sure, there may be options released later on that surpass the performance, as we have seen with the legendary NH-D14, but that doesn't change the fact that a good cooler is a good cooler. To this date there has not been a GPU released that the Arctic ACX cannot tame. With an incredible level of support for a huge number of GPU, and staying performance, this cooler offers a great level of performance for not a lot of cash.
I recently had the opportunity to pick up a GTX 1080 TI for an incredible price, the only downside being that it was the Founder's Edition. There’s nothing wrong with the FE blower cooler design, however in my case I wanted a better cooling solution, or rather a quieter option. The Arctic ACX III was my first choice, for a number of reasons. While it has technically been surpassed by the Arctic ACX IV, the third revision of this product maintains certain “advantages”, namely that it ships with options for actively cooling VRM circuitry on the PCB. The fourth generation relies on a heft back plate to cool through the pcb passively, not only a poor implementation in my mind, but one that limits compatibility in the future, as well as blocking any PCI-e lane above the GPU, specifically a problem for me, but also making the already large cooler design (3 slot!!) even larger. At that point it would be better to consider other product options. The elephant in the room is obviously the more recent offerings from Corsair and NZXT allowing for the use of a CPU AIO in lieu of traditional air cooling for the gpu. I opted for the Arctic ACX over these for a number of reasons, namely that in my current case (Silverstone FT05) there are EXTREMELY limited options for radiator mounting. While I could have gotten away with a single 120mm radiator (which is more than enough for any GPU on market today), this would have interrupted the airflow in my case drastically, preventing the main advantage it offers. Beyond this, while the NZXT adapter does offer some form of VRM cooling, it is simply not adequate in my eyes, the same for the Corsair adapter. Also a consideration, the cost is significantly higher with these options. Users must not only buy the adapter, but also a compatible AIO, as well as small heatsinks for the VRM, and possibly even new thermal pads/thermal adhesive, which can easily drive costs close to or above $150. All of this made the AIO option simply NOT an option for my use. Also, there are added risks with any AIO, specifically that it COULD leak, however small the chance. There are more points of failure too, and once the pump dies, you’ll be shelling out another $50+ to replace the entire unit. I considered the Raijintek Morpheus II as well, however the larger 4 slot design of the cooler made it difficult to consider since I use more than a single GPU configuration in my system. For the majority of users out there that use only a single GPU and perhaps maybe a soundcard, if performance/low noise if your goal I would advise you to opt for this option over the Arctic. However, in my case a 3 slot card is already a huge size commitment, beyond that the price is simply too sweet to ignore. It is easy to find the Arctic ACX III for $50-$60 online at vendors such as Newegg/Amazon, and sometimes even cheaper on Ebay. With all of that out of the way, let’s talk about impressions, the installation experience, and of course, performance!
Impressions:
This thing is huge. I’ve had plenty of experience with big air coolers before, from the Sapphires 290(x) tri-x design, to MSI Lightning Tri-Frozr, as well as a slew of other cards, but I think this is the largest cooler I’ve ever used/seen. The fin density isn't the highest, but I really don't see that affecting the performance. There are plenty of smaller heatsinks included, all with adaptable sizes to make sure they’ll fit to just about any card. Plenty of thermal adhesive included, definitely enough for more than one application, probably 3-4. Just barely enough RAM heatsinks though, although the 1080 TI is by no means typical with the 11GB of VRAM. Fans feel a bit cheap and light, but that’s to be expected given you can replace the entire apparatus for $10. All in all feels like and seems like a pretty quality product for the money, and definitely something that I could hold onto for a long time and reuse more that once.
Installation:
The hardest part of this was removing the reference cooler from the goddamn 1080 TI. I don't know who at Nvidia thought it would be a good idea to use screws through the PCB to secure the cooler that the backplate then attaches to, but this is one of the most frustrating design choices I’ve ever encountered on a GPU. Takes an incredibly small Socket to remove, unless you want to risk a $700 GPU using pliers like a madman, for reference I was able to use a 5/32 socket to remove them. Have fun.
After the cooler was removed then the installation process was fairly straight forward. I wanted to be sure that the VRM had proper cooling, So I took the time to arrange the heat sinks as I intended to stick them on the GPU before actually going ahead. Since this isn’t designed for a specific GPU, each one will be different and your layout and mine may differ. There were plenty of options for the VRMs, as well as plenty of heat sinks for the RAM. A little dab of thermal adhesive and we were all set. Just to be sure I left a book on top of them for around 15 minutes, and let the whole thing sit for an hour or 2 before I continued.
Finally, mounting this massive heatsink. This was pretty easy overall, the most difficult part was making sure it was level with the GPU die itself. A little bit of tweaking and tightening and no problem though, easier than some CPU coolers I’ve had to deal with. Everything fit nicely and had no problems installing. Always check to make sure your GPU is compatible though, even if not specifically listed on the Arctic website you can always check to see if the mounting holes are the same spacing as another model, as was the case for my 1080 TI.
Performance:
The moment you’ve all been waiting for... Performance is fantastic. Compared to stock noise is far lower at all fan speeds, and performance is far greater to boot. With fans locked at 50% through the firestrike ultra stress test temperatures never exceed 60c, with clock speeds averaging around 1850 at all stock settings (GPU boost 3.0 is a hell of a thing). At stock the GPU had throttled all the way down to the base clock and was barely able to stay below the 84c temperature limit when locked at 50%. In game I never really see temperatures past 65c or so, and never see the fans exceed ~45%, with an overclock of +150 on the core and +400 on the memory with power limit set to 120%. Performance is simply incredible on this unit, I’m absolutely blown away. I really do think this is the most powerful and top performing air cooler I’ve ever had the pleasure of using on a GPU.
So what’s the takeaway? The Arctic ACX III is a great option for aftermarket GPU cooling. Effective, cheap, easy to install, quiet, and adaptable to a myriad of GPU, it really is a great option. Don't forget that this will likely support future GPU as well, and if you don't have the latest and greatest now if you upgrade to something out now in the future it will be supported (with the exception of HBM cards). A cooler like this ensures top notch performance in both acoustics and thermals, no matter the design of the card, and is adaptable to all shapes and sizes. The only downside is the size. It is a 3 slot design, make no mistake, and also a rather long design at that. But if it fits in your case and you’re looking for better cooling, you’ll have a hard time finding a better cooler.
