MaximumPC 2005 10

T

hermaltake’s Schooner is a fanless VGA cooler that sends heat from your
videocard’s GPU into two huge heatsinks via heat pipes. The heat is then
sent to the outside of the case by way of another pair of heat pipes that are
attached to a small array of fins, which poke out the back of your PC. It’s a
clever concept, and it works, though we’d never use it on our own videocards,
and neither should you.
The reason is simple: Without fans blowing over the Schooner’s
heatsinks, they become the source of a tremendous amount of heat build-
up—warming both the videocard and the case to almost nuclear levels.
As the benchmark numbers show, our X800 XT test card was so hot under
load we needed oven mitts to remove it from the case after testing. Our test
videocard’s temps ranged from 75 C to around 85 C, or 185 F! (For the sake of
comparison, consider that Intel CPUs usually throttle down at about 74 C in an
attempt to save the CPU from an impending meltdown.) Running a videocard
at such temperatures
for prolonged periods
of time is like running
your car at near-redline
for a few hours, and
will certainly shorten
the lifespan of the card.
What’s more,
the Schooner is time-

consuming to install. Though the installation was relatively straightforward, it

took approximately an hour and a half and was grueling given the complexity

of the apparatus. We also had trouble fitting the Schooner in several PCs in

the Lab, as it either touched the north bridge cooler or the external fins were

too tall to fit through an empty PCI slot cover.

Obviously, we’re not impressed. Although it’s possible the Schooner

could work just fine with four- and eight-pipe cards, users with beefed-up

GPUs should stay far, far away

from this product!

—JOSH NOREM

Thermaltake Schooner

CL-G0009

A great space heater for the winter months

3

SCHOONER CL-G0009

$40, http://www.thermaltake.com

While the Schooner provides videocard cooling sans fans, using

it is akin to running a furnace inside your PC case!

STOCK COOLER SCHOONER

Best scores are bolded. The Schooner was tested on an ATI Radeon

X800 XT. Idle temps were measured after 30 minutes of inactivity. Full

load was achieved by looping 3DMark05 for one hour. Temps were

measured using the card’s onboard sensor.

BENCHMARKS

IDLE 40 C 45 C

1 00% LOAD 71 C 84 C