Test: NorthQ NQ-3851A

Konklusion

Innovation/Teknologi: 3 point
Køleren ligner Zalmans rigtig meget, så det er ikke fordi at køleren vækker specielt meget opsigt. Men som bekendt, virker teknologien jo rigtig fint.


Bundle/Tilbehør: 3½ point
NorthQ har vedlagt relativt mange ting. Udover køleren finder vi også en skumshim, kølepasta, ramsinks, molexconverter og en fanmate. Her er der altså intet at klage over, men heller ikke noget der får en op ad stolen.


Design: 3½ point
Køleren er i sig selv meget flot, og den er forholdsvis nem at montere. Siden den er så stor og i kobber vejer den en del, men ikke nok til at det bliver et problem.
Yderligere passer den på næsten alle grafikkort.


Ydelse: 4 point
Køleren yder rigtig godt, ingen tvivl om det. Rent faktisk er det den bedste VGA-køler vi har testet her på Hardware-TEST.dk. Desværre skuffer den mig lidt, set i lyset af den mindre Zalman-køler, som typisk ligger 2 grader bag den store køler fra NorthQ. Det er svært at sige hvorfor, men de større finner og den større blæser, i forhold til forgængeren som vi også har testet, har tilsyneladende ikke hjulpet ret meget.


Pris: 2 point
I skrivende stund ligger prisen på 244 gode danske kroner, hvilket er forholdsvis mange penge for en GPUkøler. Samtidigt koster forgængeren kun 162 kroner. Efter min bedømmelse, er storebroderen faktisk ikke de resterende 80kr værd, med mindre man går op i marginalt bedre temperaturer.

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UK Summery

Innovation/Technology: 3 points
The cooler is very similar to Zalmans vf700, so it's not the most innovative design I've seen. But like it has been proved, the technology works really great.


Bundle: 3½ points
NorthQ have given a fairly good bundle with the cooler. Aside from the cooler, there's also a foam-shim, heat sinks for the memory, a Molex converter and a fanmate. Really there's nothing to complain about, but it's not extraordinary.


Design: 3½ points
The cooler itself look very nice, and it is fairly easy to mount on the graphics card. Since it is so large and is made in cobber the weight is a bit high, but not so high that it gets a problem. Furthermore it almost fits every graphics card.


Performance: 4 points
The performance is really great, no doubt about that. Actually it's the best VGA cooler we have tested, here at Hardware-TEST.com. Unfortunately it disappoints me a bit, because it's predecessor almost performs just as good. The reason is hard to tell, but the larger heat sink and the larger fan hasn't helped a lot.


Price: 2 points
While I'm writing this, the price is at 244DKK, which is a lot of money for a VGA cooler. At the same time, it's predecessor only costs 162DKK. After my opinion, the big brother isn't worth the cost, unless you care about a degree or so.