Xigmatek Battle-Axe VGA Cooler VD964

Justin Robinson flexes his muscles with this mighty battle-axe. Rargh!

There comes a time in every enthusiast’s life when their GPU temps just aren’t good enough. You might be trying to squeeze another few MHz out of your speeds, cut down on some noise, or just give your rig a little bit of visual flair. Thankfully, there is a product out just for you – the Xigmatek Battle-Axe.

The packaging for the cooler is very good, with an X-shaped window displaying the product very nicely, and with (unsurprisingly) a picture of a battle axe next to it. Around the back of the package there is another smaller window that shows the base of the heatsink, and has compatibility information. This was slightly outdated (due to an older printed box), but covers most of ATI’s hotter cards, and a similar list of NVIDIA’s.

Included with the cooler is a manual, mounting bracket, generic white thermal goop (we’d use something else here), heatsinks to cover RAM and power regulation, and a double adapter for the twin fans. We would have also liked to see a molex to fan connector here, as some motherboards might not have a fan header within reach of the cooler.

The front of the cooler has a blue plastic frame, which is attached to the twin 92mm fans via screws. The fans are then attached via rubber nipples, which keep them from transferring any vibration or rattling noises to the card – and therefore to the case. Flipping the cooler over, you can see that the underside has a large flat base with four heatpipes that have been sanded down to provide direct contact with the core. This was done to speed up the heat transfer, taking the heat away from the core as quickly as possible and dumping it to four separate areas on the cooler. A total of thirty seven aluminium fins provide ample material to dissipate the heat, and the way that each has been folded not only holds them together, but also directs the air from the fans across them, and away from the card.

If you’ve got an older card (or even a hot newer one) that you’d like to give a facelift, this really is an outstanding product for the price. Check out Issue 95 of Atomic for performance results, as well as noise readings – on a HD4870.

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