ZEROtherm Hurricane HC92 Cu 8800

Installation & Test Setup

Installation

Like most third party solutions, the ZEROthem Hurricane supports a number of graphics cards, from older series like GeForce 7 and Radeon X1600 to newer ones like the GeForce 8 and Radeon HD 2600 series (Radeaon HD 2900 series is not supported and there's no word yet on the 3000 series). This list is likely to change as new chipsets are introduced so you should check APACK's website before proceeding.

Consisting of a 92mm fan mounted on top of a copper heatsink bolstered with four copper heat pipes running through its cooling fins, the design of the Hurricane is quite your orthodox modern cooler. A plastic shroud encases the whole heatsink and fan unit and according to APACK, helps to focus airflow.

In fact, the manufacturer suggests that the Hurricane has three forms, with the standard form being the default (with the shroud). There's also an overclocking form with the plastic fan cover removed, though we aren't too sure how much that helps. Finally, there's a silent form with the cooler fan removed. However, APACK only recommends this passive heatsink form for graphics cards with a TDP rating of less than 50W, making it unsuitable for high-end and even mid-range cards like the GeForce 8600 or 8800 series.

Included with the main heatsink are a bunch of smaller heatsinks for the memory chips and MOSFETs. Some of these heatsinks are specially included just for the Cu 8800 version, and presumably not found on the normal Hurricane. The heatsink for the NVIO chip found on the GeForce 8800 is probably one such extra component for this version.

You'll also find the usual thermal paste and a cable to connect the fan to the motherboard, along with a fan controller module that allows users to vary the fan speed from 1500 to 3300rpm. Fortunately there are about four, very small Velcro based sticky pads in the package which we assume are for the purpose of attaching the controller module to some convenient location on your enclosure.

Test Setup

To test the efficacy of the Hurricane, we decided to mount it on an overclocked GeForce 8800 GT. This being the Leadtek WinFast PX8800GT TDH Extreme, which comes in at 680/2000MHz DDR. We'll compare the temperatures of this card using both its default and the ZEROtherm cooler. Also, Gigabyte's Zalman powered GeForce 8800 GT will be added in as an interesting comparison, with that card having a rather similar overclock of 700/1900MHz DDR.

Installing the main GPU heatsink was straightforward enough, though we did encounter a minor issue with the mounting holes. As you should know, these coolers support multiple chipsets through the use of different sets of mounting holes, in order to correspond with the ones found on the PCB. Obviously, this Hurricane Cu 8800 is designed for the original GeForce 8800 GTS/GTX, as the ones specified for GeForce 8800 series did not fit our GeForce 8800 GT. We had to use another set, meant for the GeForce 8600 series instead, but that did the job dandily.

The heatsinks for the memory chips and MOSFETs were easily attached, though for our testing purpose, we did not completely use all the heatsinks. The integration of the NVIO component onto the G92 core meant that we didn't have to use the included heatsink for this. Finally, we looped our usual 3DMark06 benchmark and waited for the temperatures to go up.