L
ast month we had high praise for Zalman’s super-quiet VF700-CU LED VGA
cooler, but this month we zero in on Arctic Cooling’s extremely popular
Silencer series of VGA coolers. Though only the ATI Silencer 5 is pictured, we
also reviewed the NV Silencer 2 Rev. 3 for nVidia cards. Both cards live up to
their name by being sinfully quiet, but the massive cooling apparatus gave us a
serious hardware hangover.
Both coolers have the same construction: essentially a massive copper
heatsink that bolts directly to the GPU core. Cool air is sucked from inside
the case and blown by the 2100rpm fan over the heatsink and out of the
case. As you can see from the image, the cooler is massive, and takes up
quite a bit of space. While we didn’t care that it blocked the two slots (use-
less PCI-E x1 slots) below the top PCI Express slot on our A8N mobo, the
cooler makes it impossible to reach the release tab that most graphics-card
slots sport. It also makes unplugging the six-pin PCI E power plug very
difficult, as it’s located beneath
the shroud. As if that weren’t bad
enough, one of the mounting screws
protrudes
from the top
of the unit,
which pre-
vented us
from usingone of our DDR RAM slots. It’s a very poor design, to put it mildly.
Installation was simple. Just remove the stock cooling apparatus, drop
the Silencer onto the card, and secure it to the back of the board with four
easily installed screws.
Once up and running, the ATI Silencer offered exceptional cooling com-
pared with the stock cooler, while the nVidia version offered about the same
cooling performance as the stock unit, but without all the noise. Our 6800
Ultra test card was irritatingly loud with the stock cooler, so the addition of
the Silencer was a blessing.
Though these coolers are indeed “silent,” their plus-size girth causes way
too many clearance issues.
—JOSH NOREMArctic Cooling VGA
Silencers
An easy way to shush your videocard
U
sually, cordless mice come with built-in sacrifices: The sensor response
rate is slowed to conserve battery life; the battery lasts just 20 hours;
rechargeable batteries aren’t included; and/or a cheap transmitter results in
radio interference. The G7 is without such shortcomings—it’s an unabash-
edly Kick Ass mouse.
Take all the features we love about the Logitech G5—an adjustable
resolution sensor that allows on-the-fly sensitivity adjustments (with or
without Logitech’s drivers installed), a comfortable right-hand design, a
2000dpi laser sensor, four buttons, and a tilt wheel. Then cut the cord, add
a removable, rechargeable battery (and USB-powered charging stand) and
you’ve got one badass rodent.
While the G7 does drop into a low-power mode occasionally, the cursor
responds immediately when you move the mouse. We were unable to detect a
difference between the cordless G7 and its wired G5 sibling in any of our tests.
The G7 uses Logitech’s new 2.4GHz cordless transmitter, and the difference
between this and a traditional cordless mouse is immediately obvious. In our
casual testing, the G7’s range easily exceeded 20 feet. We’re not sure why you’d
need 20 feet of range on a mouse, but we’ll take it. If nothing else, the insane
range should guarantee perfect coverage near your desk.
The G7 also includes the same sensitivity meter as the G5, but on the
G7 it doubles as a battery-status meter. If you don’t use the mouse for a few
moments, the orange sensitivity LEDs fade, and green battery-status LEDs light
up. It’s a subtle, but very nice touch.The G7 comes with two batteries, a thumb drive-size transmitter, and a
USB-powered charging station that also sports a single USB port.
Our only real complaint with this mouse is the same complaint we have
with its wired sibling. We’d really like to have a second thumb button available.
Two thumb buttons is fairly standard! Still, even lacking a second thumb button,
this is the best cordless mouse
money can buy.
—WILL SMITHLogitech G7 Mouse
This brilliant mouse is one button shy of a perfect score
2 MA XIMUMPC JANUARY 2006
reviewsTESTED. REVIEWED. VERDICTIZED
Shiny where oth-
ers are matte,
the Logitech G7
delivers the same
performance as its
wired sibling, with
cordless conve-
nience.BENCHMARKS
ATI STOCK ATI SILENCER NVIDIA STOCK NV SILENCER
IDLE (C) 40 29 47 50
100% LOAD (C) 71 49 67 67
Best scores are bolded. All temperatures were measured via the card’s onboard sensor using the ATI Catalyst drivers. Idle temperatures were measured after 30 minutes of inactivity and
full-load temps were achieved looping 3DMark 05 for one hour.ARCTIC VGA SILENCERS 6
$30 (ATI and nVidia),
http://www.arctic-cooling.comArctic Cooling’s Silencer VGA coolers “get ‘er done” with a massive
copper/aluminum heatsink and a large, slow-spinning fan.7
LOGITECH G7 MOUSE
$100, http://www.logitech.com9
MA XIMUMPC
KICKASS