XSReviews

Introduction

Recently, I had the privilege of reviewing the Jetart 3D cooler that, in my opinion, wasn’t the most well conceived product out there. Now I have the VC1000, better known as the Storm 2, in my hands. With a brighter package, better look and a more enticing name, can this better the 3D cooler? I sure hope so…

A little About Jetart

Jetart Technology has been established since 1989. Jetart is not only a cooling devices designer but also a very professional & well-organized manufacturer, as well as an exporter. We now are focusing on developing “Thermal Solution” relating products. All of materials applied and production procedures are under very strict control. Our capacity has come up to 12 millions pieces per year. In the mean time, we create a brand name JETART for all of our cooling products. Our goal to achieve is that JETART represents image of innovation & good quality.

Under all of Jetart staff efforts, our company has been granted “Certificate of Assessment” in accordance with ISO9001 standards in 2002.
Our main business beliefs are Innovation & Quality Control. Customers’ needs always come to the first priority concern. New products are designed and developed to meet with customers & market requirements. Up to today, we have a full line of computer cooling products, including:

The VC1000

VC1000 is a full covered VGA Cooler for NVIDA & ATI VGA Cards. Built in big size speed adjustable fan with blue LED and a movable fan above, especially designed for SLI VGA card. Easily it enhances the heat dissipating for no matter GPU or both side memory modules. Quiet, high performance and fancy outlook designed VC1000 satisfies your overclocking need and allow you enjoying silence and unique modding outcome.

VC1000 Features

Specifications

Cooler Dimensions	172.1 x 132.6 x 21.6 mm
Main Fan Dimensions	70 x 70 x 10.5 mm
Main Fan Speed	1800 ~ 3000 RPM
Side Fan Dimensions	50 x 50 x 10.5 mm
Side Fan Speed	4000 RPM
Rated Voltage	12 V DC
Power Consumption	2.88 W
LED Colour	Blue
Screw	ø3 x 6.0 mm
Material	Transparent Blue UV
Weight	142 g

First Look

The packaging seems to fit in with the other VC**** range, and I believe that this is a good thing.

Like most Jetart products, the instructions on how to install and use the product are all listed on the back. This time, it would seem that Jetart have invested in a decent translator, and it makes the whole product seem a lot more professional. The grammar is much better and the whole design of the package is a great improvement over the 3D cooler’s. The installation instructions are coupled with small, but informative pictures that show what you are meant to do, which pretty much makes this product multilingual.

Another MAJOR plus to the packaging is that its only held together with one easy-to-remove staple, and then the plastic just slides away from the cardboard back. This to me is the best improvement so far… :P

A Closer Look

The VC1000 is put into the video cooling line from Jetart, along with the GPU coolers that have also been reviewed on this site. Running on the assumption that the higher the number, the better the product, this will be the bottom of the line. Hopefully its performance with exceed its rank.

The product itself is pretty simple, and nearly everything is ready to do, bar the DIY installation of the 50mm side fan. All that’s needed is for you to clip it on the side so that’s pretty easily accomplished. The fan clips onto a rail with bumps on it so you can position the fan wherever you want it and it will stay there.

Its nice to see that they packaged the ever important screw to attach the PCI bracket to your case.

The main body of the product is made of blue plastic which is apparently UV reactive. I don’t have an UV sources so I can’t prove this, but if this is true it would make the whole product a lot more aesthetically pleasing.

The 70mm fan is clipped into place on the PCI card and is again an advancement on the older 3D cooler as it has more, thinner fins. Its also thinner and doesn’t have the unsightly blue band around it covering up the LED wires. In this case the LED’s are built into the fans hub. The side fan is a 50mm blue LED equipped fan that blows at right angles to the 70mm main fan.

The wire management issues that the 3D cooler was stricken with are solved with this new model. The fans are pre-connected to the main base and are concealed along the top of the main body of the Storm 2 unit. The wire terminates in a pass-thru molex connector meaning that you don’t add extra cabling to your PC, but you still keep a molex plug. This type of pass-thru connector is becoming more and more popular as its cheaper for the manufacturer and more useful to the end user.

The cable can run out the front or the back of the product, meaning that once again you can have the neatest cabling possible. And we all know that neater cabling means better cooling.

At the bottom of the card, there are three fins. These slot into the PCI slot to keep the card in place. However, many of you are thinking that people who have PCI-e already are going to have problems with the left tab poking into motherboard capacitors and such. This is where Jetart have made it possible for this tab to be snapped off by using a pair of plyers. Whilst this is a clever idea, it makes little sense why they put it on there in the first place; if the VC1000 can be supported with just two tabs on it (PCI-e configuration) why put on three tabs? Anyway, at least they have thought of forward/backward compatibility whichever way you look at it.

On the back of the card, there is a small variable resistor. This means that you can change the speed of the fan when in use. It only controls the main fan, which doesn’t really make that much of a racket on full pelt. The side fan is the one that seems to make all of the noise in my opinion. The main problem with using this control, is that on the ‘L’ setting the blue LED not only becomes dimmer but gives out a different colour which really isn’t that attractive.

Installation

Once I’d removed my PSU and my motherboard… :) No, installing this was pretty simple; just like installing a normal PCI card. Deciding where the side fan should go is pretty easy, you just point it at the GPU.

Testing

My Radeon 9200 does not have a built-in heat probe, but I did have a heat probe with me at the time which I could get a general reading from. The card uses only passive cooling that means that its silent, but doesn’t really push any boundaries as far as overclocking is concerned.

Once the unit was installed, I ran 3Dmark05 excessively (30min). I then took the temperature. I then did some overclocking, and ran 3Dmark again.

The full results are below (250mhz/165mhz):

	Temperature
No extra cooling	54°C
With Storm 2 (low)	53°C
With Storm 2 (high)	51°C

And once again with a slight overclock (300mhz/197mhz):

	Temperature
No extra cooling	68°C
With Storm 2 (low)	64°C
With Storm 2 (high)	63°C

My max overclock was slightly higher than before

	Core Clock / MHZ
Stock – Max OC	250
Jetart VC1000 – Max OC	313

At maximum power, the Jetart Storm 2 doesn’t make a horrendous amount of noise and its quite reasonable, considering as it does lower the temperature of the GPU by a fair bit.

Conclusion

The temperature loss that the Storm 2 managed to achieve isn’t ground breaking but I think that if you have the best card, then you are going to be looking at forcing every last penny you spent to do the most amount of work possible. With that said, I don’t think that this piece of kit will be compatible with quad-SLI configurations, or SLI in general. However, its a definite improvement over the previous offering from Jetart in this field (3D cooler).

Pros	Cons
Looks good	Rather pointless fan speed control
Possibly UV reactive plastic	Not ground breaking performance
Vast improvement over previous model
Compatibility
Very quiet