If you are a PC gamer (or computer enthusiast for that matter), then you no doubt are constantly keeping on top of the curve of the latest video cards the industry is pumping out every three months or so. Many of these behemoths use up so much electricity and pump out so much heat that the stock cooling of these cards have to keep up with the times. Even with more robust default heatsinks, there is a lot of room for improvement. Third-party manufacturers like Zalman, Thermalright, ThermalTake, and Evercool make great heatsinks to replace your card’s cooler.
Many of these aftermarket coolers look “cooler” than stock heatsinks, anyway. If you have a windowed case, then you certainly want to show off just how awesome you are with a tricked-out VGA heatsink. Evercool presents their Formula 2 VGA cooler, which appears to have the whole “speed” and “racecar” theme going for it. Let’s see if it really can tame the heat demands of the latest “hot rod” video cards.
Features
- Compatible with multiple VGA cards
- Uses 80mm fan with 06 dual heat pipes and huge fins for great heat dissipation
- Formula 2 design with bright silver shape to make fashion and conspicuous looking (their words, not mine)
- Easy and quick installation
Compatibility
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Specifications
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The cooler comes in a plastic blister pack, which shows off the checkered flag design of the cooler. Opening the package reveals the cooler itself, a small tube of generic thermal paste, and four spring-loaded thumbscrews and eight rubber washers.
The cooler looks rather impressive upon first glance. The bottom of the cooler has a nice copper base, which isn’t buffed to a mirror finish, but still quite smooth. Two copper heatpipes extend from thise base which attach to an array of aluminum fins. The heatpipes appear to be coated with a nickel finish, which gives them a nice chrome-like sheen. Four posts extend from the base, which will fit through mounting holes in your video card, and secured with the included thumbscrews.
A cover is attached to the aluminum fins, which gives the Formula2 Cooler it’s racecar look. The cover feels quite light however, and further inspection reveals that it is actually plastic that has been painted to appear like chrome. I was immediately turned off by this, as I was reminded of the very cheap model car kits that have chrome plastic. Plastic Chrome is really a misnomer, as it is really “vacuum metallizing” which involves vaporizing aluminum in a vacuum chamber, which makes the plastic part look like metal. The part is then coated with a clear sealer, which makes is shiny and finishes the chrome look.
Installation is rather easy. Once you remove your existing video card’s stock cooler you will see the four mounting holes you’ll need to target. Before you install the cooler, you should put one rubber washer on each of the mounting posts (to prevent metal from potentially touching the card). Then, simply align the posts with the mounting holes and fit them through. Attach four more rubber washers on the backside and secure with the included spring-loaded mounting screws.
Attaching the fan was a sore spot. While the fan cable is sleeved, it is woefully short. The fan connector is a standard 3-pin plug, which most video cards do not have onboard. You must connect this fan’s lead to your motherboard or fan bus, which eliminates any auto-throttling capabilities of your video card. Since the fan lead is so short, you will most likely need to use an extension cable, or mod your video card to take the standard 3-pin lead.
Many third-party coolers come with memory heatsinks, but unfortunately this kit does not. If your video card’s stock cooler also cools the memory, then you should probably look for another after-market cooler. Many low-end and mid-range cards are not meant to be overclocked, and therefore the memory does not get very hot, so this cooler would probably be fine. High-end cards are usually meant for overclocking, and even their stock coolers are much beefier and pull heat from the video RAM.
We intended to test the Everocool Formula 2 VGA Heatsink against one of the latest the industry has to offer: The ATI 4870 Toxic video card (which is pre-overclocked). After initial testing it was clear that this cooler was much more comfortable with milder fare, so we also tested with a GeForce 7800 GT, which is now three generations old.
We monitored the GPU’s core temperature using each driver’s standard application (Catalyst for ATI and video properties for nVidia). We allowed the card to sit at idle for ten minutes before doing any load testing, to make sure the idle temperature was stable. We then ran several games, including Crysis Warhead, Call of Duty 4, and even 3dMark Vantage. After load testing, we allowed the card to idle again, to verify the idle temp was the same before any torture-testing.
We compared Evercool’s offering with a Zalman VF-1000 and the stock coolers of the GeForce 7800 and ATI 4870. It must be noted that only the stock coolers exhaust air directy outside of the case. All of the third-party coolers expel heat back into the case’s air supply. There usually isn’t a huge difference, as we only detected a 4°C temperature difference in extended use, but others have reported much larger temperature differences.
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You can usually tell how well a heatsink is going to perform by just feeling its weight, and this test is no exception. The heavier coolers performed better. The stock cooler of the 4870 is actually rather robust, and the light Formula 2 just can’t keep up with the heat demands. The Evercool cooler is much more comfortable with entry-level or mid-range cards that just don’t produce as much heat, as it performed slightly better than stock cooling on our 7800 GT.
We didn’t expect the Formula 2 to come anywhere close to the Zalman cooler; we just threw that in there for comparison purposes. We figured the Evercool would be better than stock, and we needed a high and low range to see where the Formula 2 fit within that range. Frankly I was disappointed how poorly the Formula 2 did on the 4870, but I wasn’t actually surprised. The 7800 test is much more fair, in my opinion, and the results agree with what we expected: the cooler performs better than stock cooling, but only slightly.
The Evercool Formula 2 VGA Cooler looks almost identical to their Turbo2 Cooler. Both are coolers with copper bases, dual heatpipes, and aluminum fins and have a similar mass. The Turbo2 was well reviewed several years ago, when video cards were not nearly as demanding as they are today. Back then the average video card was an ATI X1800 or nVidia 6800
The industry has moved on. You can now find cards for $40 that easily overpower these cards from several years ago, and produce very little heat when compared to their older cousins. These “entry-level” cards are a perfect candidtate for the Formula 2 VGA cooler. This cooler is not a good match for the latest and greatest power-hungry (and heat-producing cards) like the GeForce 260 and ATI 4870. The cooler just can’t keep up with the heat demands.
While the fan is relatively silent, but the use of a standard 3-pin fan plug means that you will likely lose the auto-cooling features built into many video cards. The fan will be running at the same speed all the time, so you must make a choice of throttling it down or leave it full-blast. It’s up to you whether you miss this feature or not.
Regardless of the performance issues of this heatsink, I was somewhat disappointed with its overall build. The copper base and mounting mechanism are very solid and are well constructed, as are the copper heatpipes that have been nickel-plated. I can understand the choice of aluminum fins, as they reduce weight and help keep costs down. What I can’t wrap my head around is why Evercool used fake chrome on the plastic cover. I just can’t take this cooler seriously.
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