Coolink GFXChilla VGA Cooler – Cooling The Radeon HD 4850

Benchmarking and Conclusion

For testing we installed the card into the platform we use for GPU testing and compared it to the other Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 graphics card.

We used ATI’s CATALYST Control Center (CCC) to monitor the temperatures and recorded the idle and load temperatures using this monitoring software. To get the idle temperatures we let the system sit at idle for 30 minutes with no screen saver enabled. The load temperatures were done using ATI Tool and running the 3D image that comes with the software to put the GPU at full load.

The test results show that the Coolink GPUChilla dropped the idle temperatures by 49% and the load temperatures by an impressive 45%! Our only complaint on the Radeon HD 4850 was how hot the card ran and the Coolink GPUChilla took cooling to the next level and actually made a significant difference. The 49% reduction at idle put the Radeon HD 4850 at 33C, which is better than we expected. The factory heat sink works, but it obviously leaves room for improvement. We also took the time to create a custom profile in the CATALYST Control Center to show you what the stock cooler can do at 100% fan speed. By creating a custom profile you can manually set the percentage the fan runs at for better cooling. Even with the fan running 100% at 8,000 RPM and 77dB it was unable to catch up to <20dB Coolink GFXChilla!

Other than just reducing temperatures the Coolink GFXChilla also helps out overclocking since the temperatures have been reduced.

With the stock cooling solution we were able to reach 690MHz on the core and 1088Mhz on the GDDR3 memory ICs as seen in this screen shot. The core wasn’t stable any higher with the GFXChilla installed, but the memory IC’s were able to be overclocked another 50MHz even though we didn’t install the RAM heat spreaders!

Final Thoughts and Conculsions:

The Coolink GFXChilla was very simple to use and instantly improved the temperatures of our Sapphire Radeon HD 4850. It cut the idle and load GPU temperatures nearly in half, which is something we didn’t expect! That just goes to show how crappy the factory heatsink on the Radeon 4850 really is! It is easy for us to sit here and say how bad the original OEM heatsink is, but remember that ATI has to keep the card in a certain price range and still be profitable to stay in business. With the With Radeon HD 4850 graphics cards priced at $149.99 after rebate it is a price versus performance winner no matter how you look at it. By adding the Coolink GFXChilla to the Radeon HD 4850 graphics card we got our temperatures right where we wanted them and didn’t break the bank doing it The GFXChilla is priced under $21, which is a good deal if you can find one. We searched for one on Google Products, PriceGrabber, Newegg and a few other sites and could not find a retailer in the United States with them for sale. Coolink is a European company, so while they are popular in Europe they have yet to develop a strong distribution channel here in the North America. One retailer in Canada called NCIX has them available for $21 plus shipping.

Legit Bottom Line: The Coolink GFXChilla significantly reduced the temperatures on our Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 and improved overclocking for under $30!