With the increased power of the modern performance video card comes the need for more power and the creation of more heat.  While we can't do much to bring down the power needs of these monsters, companies like AeroCool are working hard to bring down the heat.  Today we will be looking at the AeroCool DoublePower VGA cooler.  With not one, but two heatsinks, is this cooler worth an upgrade?  Lets take a look.

     The AeroCool DoublePower comes in a standard blister pack.  The advantage of seeing nearly every inch of a product before a purchase should be obvious, and it helps keep costs down too.  The back of the packaging features multiple product images and a rundown on the specifications and features.

     Out of the packaging we get our first look at the DoublePower heatsink.  AeroCool has taken the heat pipe structure more commonly found in CPU coolers and used it to relocate a much larger heat sink away from the surface of your video card.  It should also be clear the Double power is fashioned entirely from aluminum.  Lets take a look at the specifications.

Features:

• High thermal conductivity

• Heatpipe with aluminum fin

• Stylish double flowers heatsink

• Quad white LED fan with speed control

• Easy to install and compatible to  nVIDIA ( nVIDIA 88xx / 79xx / 78xx / 68xx )  & ATi ( ATi X19xx / 18xx )

Specifications:

     The DoublePower ships with an impressive amount of additional hardware:  The Users Manual, 8 chipset heat sinks, a tube of thermal compound and mounting hardware for nearly every current video card make.

     As you can see from the side view the dual heat pipes draw the heat out to the second active cooler.  The entire setup is almost 48cm (1.88 inches) tall making the entire cooler 2 slots or more wide depending on your board layout.  This makes a standard SLI or Crossfire layout out of the question.  The raised height sits at 17.5mm ( .68 inches) which should clear components on all but the most abnormal video card layouts.

     From this angle you can see the smaller heatsink and mounting structure.  This smaller heatsink also has an array of aluminum fins to handle any additional heat not siphoned away by the heat pipes.

     Lets take a closer look at the structure of the larger active cooler setup.  Aerocool has gone with an impressive amount of these larger fins surrounding the 8010 frameless fan.  This fan pulls air down into the fins at a speed of 2000-3000 RPMs.  The fan is rated at 27.16 - 37.28 CFM and 19.51-33.86 dBA.  The fan is lit by a set of four white LEDs that put of a good amount of light.

     From the bottom you can see the smooth solid surface of the actual heatsink contact area.  This same solid surface is carried into the larger heatsink.  I am not sure why they wouldn't choose a more porous design to increase airflow and provide secondary cooling to the rest of the video card surface area.   The junk shown here on the right side was left by the accessories taped to the heatsink for packaging.

     AeroCool provides this external fan control for the DoublePower to allow for manual control of the fan and by association the white LED lighting.  I have never been a fan of these external controllers preferring an internal heat sensor or an on card based solution.  The controller ships defaulted to the HI setting.