Most PCI and other expansion cards do not generate alot of heat, and therefore are overlooked when cooling your computer system. Today’s multimedia and home theater systems include high performance TV tuners, video capture, and high-performance sound cards that do tend to get quite warm, and could benefit from additional cooling. Even many video cards could use some extra help, as the tiny OEM heatsinks are either underpowered or fail.
If you want some additional cooling insurance, then CoolIT has the solution for you. Their PCI Cooling Booster product is intended to fit right over the PCI bay of most motherboards, thereby providing additional airflow between your expansion cards and cooling their internal components.
CoolIT Systems has recently burst onto the aftermarket computer component market with innovative products designed to cool your rig down. Their PCI Cooling Booster is intended to address the problem of overheated cards that are plugged into your option bay (not limited to PCI cards). The extra airflow blasts over all of your cards, effectively making passive heatsinks more efficient, and cooling off capacitors and chips. Even if your cards don’t require cooling, reducing the heat will undoubtedly increase their lifespan.
CoolIT Systems PCI Cooling Booster Specifications
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The CoolIT PCI Cooling Booster comes in a clear plastic clamshell package and includes nothing more than the unit itself, and an informational insert. The main unit is a simple one-piece design and includes four “stackable” thumbscrews. The device is intended to be mounted over your case’s 7-slot PCI bay using the included screws.
The design of the cooler is rather simple, and is basically an 80mm fan mounted to a thick sheet of aluminum. The aluminum is then shaped and stamped with a die to form the cutouts. To eliminate any unsightly mounting screws, the fan is attached to the base using four triangular pieces of foamy double-sided tape. The base is then attached to the case with the included thumbscrews that are pre-installed on a metal bridge. The booster uses four screws: two of them are secured to the case’s expansion slot directly, and the other two are screwed into those screws, with the Coolit’s mounting bridge sandwiched inbetween.
The 80mm fan is crystal clear, but includes several blue LEDs that effectively illuminate all the fan blades. The cable is a little short at 18cm long, and is not sleeved, so it doesn’t look as polished as the rest of the unit. In addition, the 3-pin fan connector only has the positive and negative wires attached, so your motherboard will be unable to monitor the fan’s speed.
Once the Booster is installed, the fan will raise about 3.5cm from the edge of the PCI expansion slots, so make sure your case has enough clearance. The PCI Cooling Booster spans across all seven expansion slots, so it will assist cooling of all installed peripherals, from video cards, sound cards, TV tuners, and any other cards that tend to get a little warm.
Installing the PCI Booster is rather easy. You merely unscrew two case screws that hold in the first and last PCI cards of your expansion bay, and secure the included thumbscrews to those slots. You then place the Booster’s bridge over the screw heads, and then insert the extra mounting screws through the bridge. The Booster is essentially “sandwiched” between two sets of thumbscrews.
You must remove the Booster when it comes time to do any maintenance on peripherals beneath the unit. Those with screwless case designs may not be able to use this unit. Thanks to the “stackable” nature of the thumbscrews, you don’t have to loosen any cards secured by the thumbscrews: you simply loosen the top screws and remove the Booster. Man, I didn’t think I could say “screw” that many times in one paragraph. Screw.
Test System
- Intel E6600 Core 2 Duo
- Asus P5W Deluxe Motherboard (Intel 975 Chipset)
- Creative X-Fi Platinum sound card
- ADS InstantHDTV Capture Card
- XFX GeForce 7800 GT
- Crucial Ballistix Tracer DDR2-800
- 3x Western Digital 300GB SATA2
The tuner box on the HDTV tuner gets rather warm when watching over-the-air HDTV, so I tuned into a local channel. To get the juices flowing on the sound and video card, I ran 3dMark 2006 in a loop.
CoolIT PCI Cooling Booster Performance
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The temperature changes are not substantially significant, but it does demonstrate that the product effectively lowers component stress. This product is merely meant to augment current cooling, so a good exhaust system must still be in place. The fan is loud and a rather noticable addition to the case, so this may not be the best solution for a quiet home theater.
The PCI Cooling Booster does effectively cool your optional internal system components, but doesn’t really help with overall system temperature. The temperature inside your case will continue to rise unless you have an efficient exhaust system. Some cases today naturally expell heat through convection (like the Lian Li), as heat naturally rises through the holes in the top of the case. If you have a completely closed system, then the PCI Cooling Booster will only direct warm air over your PCI cards.
The placement of the PCI Cooling Booster can help cool the blistering temperatures of your video card, as well as the optional components that don’t receive much thermal attention. Multimedia cards such as TV Tuners and MPEG encoders tend to get rather hot, and can benefit greatly from the additional cooling provided by CoolIt’s solution.
Unfortunately, the PCI Cooling Booster isn’t a completly silent option, so it may add noise to your Home Theater PC: a proposition that most users do not find appealing. The Cooling Booster does not have a way to throttle down, and there is no way to monitor its RPMs. An external rheostat can be used to find a happy balance between cooling and noise, but one should have been included in the kit.
If you already have good ventilation, the the PCI Cooling Booster may serve as a powerful addition to your overall cooling schema.
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