Review Item...........................: Rocket
Supplied By............................: Evercool

I love digging around in the boxes that arrive to find something weird or new to review. So using the Evercool box as a lucky dip I reached in and found something and dragged it out to see what it was. What I had grabbed was the Evercool Rocket. On first appearance it looks like a PCI slot cooler that is coloured in translucent blue with orange fans. It looks funky, and I will admit I thought it was solely a PCI slot cooler or at best a VGA cooler. Upon closer inspection and tearing open the packet it turns out to be a multi cooler.

The specs show it as a 40CFM cooler with two 80mm orange fans measuring a mere 200mm long and 24mm thick. Its a similar size to an older model graphics card but not limited to the fitting of one. Also it has a fan controller built into it that shows through the back which gives you an extra element of control. Its simple, stylish and compact and looks fun.

When you look at it again, you see that it can do more. You dont have to have it fitted in the standard position like you would expect from a VGA style cooler. This unit ships with a little extra hidden in the packaging, it comes with another bracket. If you unscrew the standard PCI style bracket you get a horizontal version that will allow you to lay the cooler over all of your PCI cards, to blow down over them. This would be fantastic for SLi / dual graphics cards to force the cold air into them and keep them cool. The added cooling should help stability in overclocking or intense gaming. So the appeal is really starting to get me now and I cant help but want to overload something to test it.

First thing is first though, so I need some marker points for the laser thermometer, and the best place I can think of is the back of the VGA card, an ATi X1950 in this system and I find the back of the card gives a good reliable reading. Not only that its easier to zap with a laser. So we will test the cooling on the graphics first and then see what else we can find. The only real way to get a graphics card hot is either SiSoft Sandra, or better still take an hour out gaming. So guess which option I chose? Yes thats right, Unreal!

Now when you settle down for an hours gaming you get the essentials, a drink, something to snack on while you game, then just sit back and relax. Only, time slips by when your gaming, and that one hour turned into three hours, or was it four? Anyway, the card was hot enough by now so it was a good time to check the temperatures. The rear of the card read as being 58 degrees which I find kind of normal, the ram was 47 degrees and the rear marker point I use was 26 degrees. This rear temperature point is on the PCB and one I have found to offer some idea how much heat is radiating across the card and can offer a broader picture.

So the cooler was slotted in on the normal PCI bracket and once again I played Unreal. I did only play it for about an hour or so this time as it was getting rather late in the day. The temperature on the cards we taken once again and the difference was rather promising. The card was placed with a space of a full slot between the graphics card and the Rocket cooler, not next to each other. The temperature on the rear of the card was 49 degrees, the ram 41 and the temperature on the rear of the card at the marker point was 24-25 degrees. Now that doesnt sound like a lot on the very back of the card but its not getting a lot of cooling at that remote point. The core showed promise with the extra cold air being forced into it, and the ram really did appreciate the airflow. So on the whole I am pleased with that level. The fan controller was set on high as well so you can get some idea of what the other settings will do. Noise was not to bad, to be fair I was concentrating on the game at this point so didnt really notice the noise from the cooler through the sound of gunfire on the surround sound speakers that were cranked up rather high. Nothing gets over the sound of a railgun!!!

So a single graphics card can benefit from some cooling, I like it set back from the card with a slot between to offer enough space for air to flow naturally, also lowering the noise level. But cards in a dual set up, SLi or similar configurations cant get the benefit also. Or normally that would be the case but the clever people over at Evercool have even thought of that and offer it with the second bracket to let you place the cooler 'over' the cards to cool them. This means the cards can be cooled from above, forcing air into the space between them so that the card that would normally be restricted on airflow can have some cold air hammered into it. The card facing out into the open can have some cold air offered to it as well. Now placement here may be critical in your system so try it for a while and maybe move it around a bit to find that perfect placement for cooling. As with most coolers it does pay to move it about and see how it performs, then move it again to see if its better or worse.

You do realise this meant more gaming... Oh well gotta love it hey! So Quake was fired up to see how it all was without the cooler. I needed a break from Unreal. So after an hour and a half of gaming, the temperatures were taken once again and to be honest, it was hot. In fact it was rather hot. The top card was at 64 degrees on the back and 51 on the ram, the lower card, or the one that could breath far easier was 61 degrees with the ram at 50 degrees. Both cards are modded to redo the paste properly, just so you are aware its not factory standard.

I didnt get time to run the burn in tests after fitting the cooler in the new position, it was late and I was totally worn out. So set about it the following day.

Once again the following day, the system was booted and left to run Sandra for a while to get the base temps up. Then I set about gaming to get the temps right up where they needed to be. Coffee, burn in tests and gaming, you really do have to love it!

It does become common ground that you settle down for an hours gaming to pass the time and nearly three hours later your still sat there thinking "just five more minutes". But you do have to stop for testing purposes. The top card with the cooler on it showed a good difference, a respectable 56 degrees with ram on 49. The lower card of the two was 54 degrees with the ram at 48. Not such a big difference on the lower card but it does have more open air and the position of the cooler where I had placed it was merely to offer cold air to the higher of the cards. Thats how I would personally run it as it almost feels like its starving to death of cold air being shut in so close to another heat source like another graphics card. Another point to mention is the room ambient temperature was up as the weather outside had gone up rapidly. This would keep the cards warmer than before.

All in all with paired cards giving a temperature drop of 8 degrees on the core and ram at about 3 degrees it was enough to aid stability. The best cooling it offered was directly in the PCI slot at almost ten degrees but remember, that was with a slot gap so the air pressure was not there. Directly next to it should have been better! On the top position it was cooling two cards at the same time in the other style and showed a good improvement over two cards. That was also affected by placement of the cooler in relation to the cards. Some time moving the cooler up or down would have affected the results again. The fine tuning will make a massive difference.