Hardware Bistro

Product: GFXChilla
Manufacturer: Coolink
Supplied by: Coolink
Price: 32USD/RM113
Launch Date: Feb 2008

 

Graphic card technology is keep on changing and improving so rapidly and hence a proper cooling is required to ensure its stability and reliability. Although most of the mainstream till performance graphic cards nowadays already come with advanced VGA coolers but today we have decided to introduce a VGA cooler to you as there are certain of people will interest with it; Coolink GFXchilla.

 

Company Profile

Coolink is a brand of the Kolink International Corporation and stands for an effective conjunction of no-frills performance, excellent quality and attractive pricing. Coolink - the direct link to affordable high-end cooling!

Kolink International Corporation is a cooling specialist established in 1996 and well known among industry insiders. Throughout the years, Kolink designed and manufactured many top-performing heat-sinks under various brand names that succeeded in international markets. An experienced R&D team and ultra-modern production plants in Taiwan ensure continuous progress, efficient manufacturing conditions and strict quality standards.

 

Features

- Four 6mm heatpipes for excellent heat distribution throughout the cooling fins
- Two large, low-profile 80x80x10mm fans (18dB)
- Low profile: takes up only 2 expansion slots
- Incl. self-adhesive aluminum RAM & VR heatsinks
- Easy installation and broad compatibility 

 

Specifications

Package & Contents

 

Coolink GFXchilla is packed with a rectangular cardboard box which is pretty small compared with its size. There is a small window in the front packaging which allows the users to have clearer picture about this cooler; but in fact it doesn't show much except the fans. Information and cooler dimension are written at the back of the packaging and Coolink provides 3-year warranty for GFXchilla which is pretty attractive.

 

Besides the outer cardboard, Coolink GFXchilla is packed with another fully see through plastic container. Other accessories besides VGA cooler that come along with Coolink GFXchilla are 3-pin to Molex adapter, thermal compound, spacer strips, distance bolts, washers, screw with spring nut and plenty of tiny chip heatsinks. The functions and usage of these accessories will be explained in installation & setup section for clearer understanding.

 

Coolink GFXchilla is a complicated VGA cooler and hence a proper user's manual is pretty important which is what Coolink did a good job here where the user's manual is able to deliver very clear message to the users about how to install it correct with some illustrated pictures. There are 18 pcs of these tiny heatsinks with pre-applied adhesive pad for memory chip and voltage regulators.

 

A Closer Look - Coolink Silent Savior

Coolink is a computer cooling brand that are always focusing on thermal and cooling products where VGA cooler is just one of their babies. Frankly to say Coolink could be considered a pretty new brand in retail industry and hence so far there are only two VGA coolers at this moment which are GFXchilla and SWAP whereby GFXchilla is the higher end VGA cooler while SWAP is just targeted for entry graphic card market.

 

Our first sight on Coolink GFXchilla is pretty amazing and really impressed us with its slim size as this is the slimmest heatpipe VGA cooler that we have ever seen; yes it is a four heatpipes VGA cooler. The dimension of Coolink GFXchilla without fan and with fan are 20 x 161 x 115 mm & 20 x 161 x 115 mm (H x W x D). Besides the slim size, Coolink GFXchilla is just weighted around 330g which is amazing and extremely suitable for those single PCI slot graphic card.

 

All the while graphic card cooler is having one common problem which is compatibility but we are glad that we do not see this issue on Coolink GFXchilla because it has superb compatibility support with its universal brackets. Coolink GFXchilla is not only able to support most of the entry, mainstream graphic cards but also some high end graphic cards; full compatibility list can be found here.

 

Same with other high end coolers, Coolink GFXchilla is made by aluminum cooling fins, copper base and heatpipes. Such combination for a cooler is not only delivering great performance but also cost effective. The copper base of Coolink GFXchilla is not as shinning as a mirrow but it is flat enough to compete with other top coolers. Right beside the copper base, there are two mounting brackets with 12 different mounting holes and the whole mounting brackets can be adjusted with higher and lower positioning; awesome design.

 

As we mentioned before Coolink GFXchilla is a VGA cooler with four heatpipes despair of its amazing slim size which is almost unexpected. All these four heatpipes are pretty long C-shaped copper heatpipes which nickel coated. Basically U-shaped heatpipe is better than C-shaped heatpipe in term of cooling efficiency because it allows bi-directional rather than mono-directional flowing. The aluminum fins of Coolink GFXchilla are merged together in horizontal way which is the only way to allows the heatpips integrated with the fins.

 

After we talked about the structure of Coolink GFXchilla, now it's time to touch a little bit on its cooling fans. As you can see Coolink GFXchilla comes with dual 80mm slim cooling fans which is only around 10mm height. This is really amazing especially for 11-fan blades fan. These blue cooling fans come with 2000RPM and 18 dB/A which are pretty silent with such great speed. Besides that another advantage of Coolink GFXchilla is the changeable fan where any 80mm fan with suitable screw can be mounted on the heatsink perfectly. Anyway both of these fans are combined together with a single 3-pin power cable.

For better compatibility verification, here is the exact construction layout of Coolink GFXchilla. Basically among these 12 different mounting holes on these mounting brackets, there are 8 set of different mounting dimensions for supporting as many graphic cards as possible. Don't forget that the mounting brackets of Coolink GFXchilla is adjustable.

 

Installation, Testing & Performance

 

For the testing and comparison, we have chosen Nvidia GeForce 8800GT which is a performance graphic card with single PCI slot cooler which makes Coolink GFXchilla is one of the best substituted cooler for this graphic card. In term of size, Coolink GFXchilla is quite similar with the reference cooler from Nvidia but Coolink GFXchilla comes with additional advantages such as dual 80mm fans, massive aluminum fins, copper heatpipe and so on.

 

First of all, the first task of course is to remove out the existing cooler and clean the thermal compound completely to avoid any performance impact. After that we have adhered some tiny heatsinks for memory chips and voltage regulators because these are other components that will heat up badly besides the GPU. Two set of heatsinks are available for the voltage regulators so that the compatibility issue could be minimized; just choose the suitable one.

Due to Nvidia GeForce 8800GT doesn't come with metal frame so we have applied the spacer strips on the edges of the GPU core for protecting it from being damaged which could be due to overforce or unbalanced force. After that the right mounting dimension needs to be measured correctly else the whole mounting setup needs to be redone again.

 

For the amount of mounting screw requirement, it will depend on the graphic card and we need four set of mounting screw + distance bolts in order to secure Nvidia GeForce 8000GT. Once the exact mounting holes are identified then make sure these distance bolts are secured on the mounting brackets. After that the whole Coolink GFXchilla can be mounted on the graphic card and remember to add the washer between the screws, bolts with the graphic card to protect the PCB circuit.

 

Last but not least, remember to connect the fan cable to system PSU connector else these fans are not going to spin. Anyway we have completed to install Coolink GFXchilla on Nvidia GeForce 8800GT and the overall process was just taken around 20 minutes since we are pretty familiar with such installation. Basically with its great flexibility and slim size, we didn't face any installation issue at all.

 

Test Bed

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8300 @ 2.83GHz
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3 (Gigabyte G31M-ES2L)
Heatsink: Noctua NH-C12P
Memory: Kingston HyperX DDR2 8500
Hard Drive: 250GB 7200RPM 8MB Seagate
Graphic Card: Nvidia GeForce 8800GT
Casing: In Win Maelstrom
PSU: In Win Commander 750W
Router: TRENDnet TEW-639GR
Optical Drive: DVD RW
Monitor: Dell 22" Wide Screen LCD
Speaker: Edifier R501
Mouse: SteelSeries Ikari Laser
Mouse Pad: SteelSeries QcK+
HeadSet: SteelSeries 3H
Operating System: Microsoft XP Pro SP2/Vista Home Premium
Ambient Temperature: 27 Degree Celsius

Here are the performance results of Coolink GFXchilla when it was installed on a Nvidia GeForce 8800GT compare with the reference VGA cooler. Based on the tested results that we obtained, it is obvious showing that Coolink GFXchilla is able to outperform the stock cooler of Nvidia GeForce 8800GT with at least few degrees of improvement which is awesome for such simple and lightweight VGA cooler.

 

Verdicts

Our first impression on Coolink GFXchilla is could this VGA cooler performs better than those graphic cards which already come with decent VGA coolers and after this review, we could tell you that yes it is. Frankly to say Coolink GFXchilla may not be the best VGA cooler in the market but considering its extreme low profile dimension, we believe Coolink GFXchilla have already delivered the best performance that it could. Besides that Coolink GFXchilla also comes with other attractive features such as universal mounting bracket, quiet, replaceable fan, 3-year warranty and etc. If you are looking for a non bulky VGA cooler then Coolink GFXchilla is one of the good choices for you with its acceptable price; 30USD.

 

Pros:

+ Universal mounting brackets
+ Awesome superb slim dimension
+ Quiet & decent performance
+ Great compatibility
+ Replaceable stock fan
+ Comes with DIMM & VR heatsinks

Cons:

- Adhesive pad is not that sticky enough

 

Thanks to Coolink for providing this sample for us to review.

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