Inside the system

The Silencer series expels heat out the back, inside the package you’ll find a replacement PCI bracket which needs to be placed right under the VGA card.



Looking straight down onto the motherboard you can see that the Silencer is SLI friendly, enough room left to install a second VGA card. However the PCI slot next to the bottom PCIe will be rendered unusable due to the size of the Silencer.




Test Results

First with the 7800GT at stock speeds:



I repeated these tests several times but it seemed that changing the fan speed through Rivatuner did not impact performance a whole lot, if at all. Even after 1 hour stress tests the temperatures hardly fluctuated. [note: I plan to re-do these tests to triple verify my findings]

Let’s turn up the heat and overclock



The extra heat production translates in measurable difference in temperature between the fan speed settings. While the thermal performance is not stellar compared to the stock cooling, the noise reduction is very remarkable. For those seeking extreme silence the 25% fan speed setting will drop the noise level below ambient and even at 50% the Silencer remains whisper quiet and able to keep temperatures in the safe area.

Overall Impression

Arctic Cooling continues their tradition of delivering high quality VGA cooling solutions with this latest incarnation of the Silencer series. The only downside is the limited compatibility which is largely overshadowed though by easiest installation, silent operation and good overall performance. And to top it off this product is widely available from international stores at a fair price of ~€28/$33.