If you were to purchase any PC processor today it would come with a reasonably large heatsink and fan. This is due to the fact that their desktop and server processors produce very large amounts of heat. However, the processor is no longer the only powerful processing chip within today"s computers. Other components are becoming just as powerful and as a consequence produce almost as much heat.
For example GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) that are the heart and soul of any add-in graphics card have become incredibly complex over the past few years. They have reached a stage where they are almost putting out as much heat as the CPU.
This is becoming an ever increasing problem for graphics cards as they are more limited when it comes to cooling capacity. Reference design coolers just doesn"t seem to cut it all the time, not to mention they can be quite loud. Today we will be testing some of the best after-market GPU coolers from renown manufacturers Arctic-Cooling, Thermalright and Zalman. Better heat dissipation and less noise, we will see how these compare.