14 DAY TRIAL // Showing that it hasn't decided to slack off, Spire has officially announced the SkyMax VGA cooler, one that should already be available, in China at least.
Graphics cards have their own coolers, but some people want to change them anyway, to make their models run more silently or just get ventilated better.
Spire believes that its SkyMax is just the thing people need, as long as their video adapter works on 180 W or less.
It relies on five copper heatpipes to bring the heat from the GPU to the fin array, though said pipes don't make direct contact with the chip.
The heatsink itself boasts an open design, which means that whatever air the fans throw at, it goes on to wash over the rest of the graphics card.
That way, even if there is no base plate or heatpipe to make contact with the other chips on the PCB, air will constantly flow over it.
As for the DC fans themselves, there are three of them and boast a diameter of 90 mm (for the one at the center) and 80 mm (the other two). Combined, they achieve an air pressure of 36.5 CFM.
Both mid-range and high-end graphics adapters can draw benefit from the SkyMax cooler.
Be advised, though: if you are thinking of getting it for the upcoming NVIDIA Kepler card, you might want to look elsewhere since that one supposedly runs at 300W.
Also, installing the cooler may not be possible on that thing for another reason: the strange PCI Express power connectors stacked on top of one another.
The price Spire has stapled on the SkyMax is $59.99 in the US and 44.95 Euro in Europe. Sales should already be underway, but if retailers near you still don't list it, it may be that the company is slower at international shipments than in China.
