Graphics Card Coolers

If your PC has a fan on its video card, you'll probably know about it! Usually they are very small, very fast and very noisy. Rather than changing the whole card, you can easily change its cooler for a quieter, more efficient one.

These days, the performance of a PC system is reliant almost as much on the video card as the main processor. As graphics performance has increased, so has the heat output of the graphics processing unit (GPU) chip, which in turn has lead to video cards being installed with more and more elaborate fan-based coolers. From a noise point of view, this is a disaster! The tiny GPU fan must spin very quickly in order to achieve reasonable airflow, and of course the higher the fan speed, the higher the noise level.

Naturally, the best approach is to avoid video cards with fans on them, but these days it is almost impossible to find a high performance graphics card without a fan. But there is no need to sacrifice performance for quietness; the following innovative products will put an end to the problem for good. Your VGA card won't be just "quieter" - it will be virtually silent! Extremely clever heatsink designs give a huge increase in surface area, and often gives better cooling than the standard item too.

	Gelid Solutions Icy Vision Rev.2 VGA Cooler for High-end AMD and Nvidia
	Price: £28.99 Compatible with virtually all Nvidia and ATI cards Five high performance power heatpipes Premium aluminium fins and pure copper base Two 92mm S-shape fans for 20% additional air flow Ball bearing for long life CrossFire and SLI compatible More information		Ultra
	19 in stock

	Gelid Solutions PWM Adaptor Cable for VGA Cooler Fans
	Price: £1.80 Allows use of a PWM fan powered by the graphics card Fan speed will increase and decrease depending on GPU temperature Use it with our PWM Y Cable for multiple PWM fans More information
	300 due on 13 Jul