EVGA e-GeForce 7800 GTX KO ACS3 Edition 256MB PCI-E

Digit Life have reviewed an eVGA 7800 GTX KO with AC3 cooling system:

The new cooling system is based on the reference cooler, which is hidden inside this black housing. That is everything is standard: a closed heatsink and an off-center fan that drives the air through the inner fins of the heatsink.

Here are the innovations: heat exchange surface of the heatsink is expanded due to the housing; there is a copper core inside that touches the GPU to increase cooling efficiency; the back of the card is not just equipped with a plate to cool memory chips like in reference cards - each chip has its own small heatsink, all of them form a united coolant loop. Another advantage is the openwork housing that does not cover the card as a cuirass (sometimes done by Leadtek designers, which were criticized for this practice, because such cards got overheated and failed more often than the others). This special cooler allows the card to bear the ACS3 suffix in its title.

With all its advantages, the new cooling system possesses one significant disadvantage: the hot air is not driven out of a PC case. Let's recall a similar card from ASUS, which frequencies are also raised very high relative to the nominal values. That product is equipped with a very efficient and quiet cooler from Arctic Cooling that drives the air out of a PC case. Considering that even a regular GTX card gets very hot and can bring much trouble in closed PC cases without proper ventilation, driving the hot air out of a PC case with such high frequencies is a pressing task.