Inno3D GeForce GTX 260 iChiLL Accelero Xtreme 896MB
Inno3D iChiLL cards were established with the intention of creating a premium, feature-rich line that shipped with, usually, pre-overclocked GPUs kept in check by reference-beating cooling.One of the latest iterations of this has manifested itself as an association between Inno3D and Arctic Cooling. Say hi to the iChiLL Accelero XXX GTX 260.
Inno3D takes the bare GTX 260 PCB and sticks the three-fan Accelero Xtreme cooler on top. Made up of three 92mm fans on top of no less than five heatpipes, the cooler is ratified for use on GeForce GTX 260/280/280s.
The cooling takes up more than just the PCB, and the five heatpipes can be clearly seen in the above picture. Having card-wide cooling means that the board's other hot-running components are indirectly cooled, too.
Inno3D ramps up clocks from a default 576MHz/1,242MHz/1,998MHz to 620MHz/1,360MHz/2,100MHz for the core, shader, and memory, respectively. Given the size of the heatsink, the clocks are somewhat conservative, as we've seen reference-cooled GTX 260s hit 666MHz/2,300MHz. You'll see why we think they're unduly conservative as we move on to overclocking.
Our sample's cooler was a little damaged during transit, and we had to manhandle it to ensure the two six-pin PCIe connectors were unobstructed. To be fair to Inno3D, the packaging is pretty good, so we put this down as a one-off issue.
Arctic Cooling reckons that the cooler can dissipate 250W. Not hard enough? Then there's the Radeon HD 4870 X2 cooler that's rated to 320W.
We found the Accelero Xtreme to be very quiet in both 2D and 3D modes, beating out both the ATI-based cards in the aural stakes.
The reference heatsink's pretty good, venting hot air out of the back. Inno3D keeps the same backplate arrangement, but the 'open-air' cooling of the Accelero means that more of the heat is circulated into the chassis.
