Coolers

Zotac GeForce GTX 580 AMP

At first glance it's a typical cooler, but then you notice there are no heatpipes. In fact, this device is based on a vaporizing champer located in a copper baseplate that adjoins the GPU. Above the champer are heatsink fins through which air passes, driven by the fan.

According to our tests, this solution is more efficient than the one with heatpipes. Another key improvement is that fan speed is now auto-adjusted smoothly depending on temperature. This results in quiet operation, especially under light load.

Zotac GeForce GTX 560 Ti AMP

This one is a custom solution from Zotac. It bases on a large longitudinal heatsink with heatpipes under which is a large metallic plate that cools both the GPU and memory chips. A large, slow fan speeds up rarely (which occasionally results in temperature increasing), so the cooler is quiet.

Zotac GeForce GTX 460 SE

At first glance this is also a typical cooler. But, as you can see, the fan is in the center, and it's not cylindrical but regular. This makes it clear that the cover is simply a decoration.

Under the cover is a single oval heatsink with no heatpipes (perhaps because heat emission is lower). Only the GPU is cooled down, memory chips are not. The fan is slow, so the cooler is generally quiet.

Temperature monitoring results

Zotac GeForce GTX 580 AMP

Zotac GeForce GTX 560 Ti AMP

Zotac GeForce GTX 460 SE

As you can see, the coolers on the GeForce GTX 580 AMP and GeForce GTX 460 SE cards work quite efficiently. As for the one on the GeForce GTX 560 Ti AMP, it let the temperature rise to 90°C after 8 hours of non-stop operation in the 3D mode. This isn't critical for such cards, but that's the sacrifice to silence.

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