Introduction:

Video card chipsets are becoming extremely intricate pieces of hardware. The new GeForce FX chipset, which is supposed to debut within the next couple weeks, has over 100 million transistors. That is over 50 million more than the latest processor put out by Intel, the Pentium IV Northwood. Processors have had active cooling since the 486 days when processors only had 1.6 million transistors. Granted transistors are not the only reason why processors give off heat, but with each processor generation there is a larger need for better cooling.

Now back to the idea of Graphic Processor Unit or Visual Processing Unit (GPU/VPU) cooling. Active cooling for your GPU/VPU became popular around the time of the nVidia TNT2, and for good reason. If you look at the new GeForce FX putting out an incredible 70+ watts it is obvious that conventional cooling is simply not going to cut it any longer.

Enter the Dustbuster 5800cfm

Due to the above issues regarding heat an alternate cooling solution was obviously required. Now that's exactly what we have here to review today. The most radically new design in VPU/GPU cooling the industry has ever seen. The Dustbuster 5800cfm is light years ahead of it's time. The guys over at nVidia teamed up with some of the most highly qualified experts in the cooling industry from Black and Decker. In addition engineers from both Boeing and NASA were called to duty to assist in the design of this technological marvel. Some 3 years later (after being tested extensively on NASA space craft) the Dustbuster 5800cfm is now available for retail purchase, well nearly.

Unfortunately due to the complex nature of the Dustbuster the guys at nVidia have only been able to market this wonder of technology with the Geforce FX 5800 Ultra. What does this mean to you? Well unfortunately it means that you will have to purchase the Geforce FX 5800 Ultra. Already there has been a massive uproar about this unnecessary addition to the Dustbuster 5800cfm. But the guys at nVidia have assured us that by including the Geforce FX 5800 Ultra in the package that prices are only slightly higher than if the Dustbuster 5800cfm was to be purchased separately (in the order of ~$10-$15 US). 

Recent talks with nVidia have revealed that the upcoming Geforce FX 5800 Ultra Pro (dubbed the Radeon 9700 Pro killer) is to use 2 of the highly sought after Dustbuster 5800cfm cooling solutions. nVidia have informed us that this is likely to be around double the cost of the Geforce FX 5800 Ultra, however when coupled with 2 of these extreme pieces of hardware it will be well worth the price. However it appears that this may be a sore point for CPU manufactures out there who are currently enjoying the warmth the FX 5800 Ultra is able to provide their CPU's. The Geforce FX 5800 Ultra, which currently disperses approx. 68 degrees Celsius of pure heat straight off the back of the passive heat sink straight up into the CPU is extremely impressive however there are mixed feelings in the industry over this heat issue, mainly from the old school techies who still use air cooling for their CPU's. The lads over at Intel do not anticipate 68 degree air being pumped directly onto the Pentium 4 as being any sort of issue. On the other hand the guys over at AMD are very pleased with the heat increase in the processors path. A quote from AMD's VP "we have been looking for more heat to fuel our processors for sometime now. We are very happy with the passive heat sink on the back of Geforce FX 5800 Ultra, it will be sad to see it replaced by the Geforce FX 5800 Ultra Pro and most likely send us back to the drawing board. But imagine running 2 of those Dustbuster 5800cfm's at the same time! Now that's just awesome. We are really banking all our hopes on the heat generated by the Dustbuster, with a power consumption of over 60 watts we are hoping that it will generate significant heat of it's own, thus reducing our future R&D costs in looking for more heat."

Specs:

Testing:

We ran three different tests on our bench system (you and me, BENCH!); the first test was run without anything over the video card, then the next test was run with a standard socket 370 cooler, and finally with the Dustbuster 5800cfm blowing over the video card. All tests were run with the side panel of the test system left open because we really wanted to hear this baby in action (mp3's below). The room temperature was kept stably around 17 to 18 degrees Celsius.

The idle time was achieved after a 3 to 4.5 hour period at the desktop. We ran one loop of 3DMark2001SE to obtain the 3DMark2001SE results. Finally the Quake3 temperatures came from running Demo001.

The bench system constants:

Below are the results for the Geforce FX and CPU temperatures:

As we can see from the above results the Dustbuster 5800cfm is an absolute must when using the Geforce FX 5800 Ultra.

From the above graphs we can see that the CPU really heats up a fair bit when using the Geforce FX 5800 Ultra. Many will agree nVidia have really raised the bar when it comes to CPU heating this time around.

Click here to HEAR the Dustbuster in action.

Conclusion:

The Dustbuster 5800cfm cooler did the best, as expected, because it pumps out 5800 CFM versus socket 370 coolers pathetic 60 CFM. If you want airflow this is the cooler for you. This baby can be used to pump hot air around your whole house, vacuum your car, wash your boat, suck up your neighbors cat, fuel bushfires hundreds of kilometers away etc etc! Imagine that! Oh and what about the noise this baby generates. Personally I love the feel of having an international airport inside my house, the great work from the guys at Boeing has to be congratulated at this stage for their invaluable input into the design and overall noise output of this card, they have achieved a sound level remarkably close to that of a 747, well done for being able to compact that into a PC, a real joy once again bravo. As mentioned earlier in this article the Dustbuster 5800cfm is only available with the Geforce FX 5800 Ultra. Yes we completely agree there is no need for the extra graphics card to be packaged with this amazing cooler, however just think what the Geforce FX 5800 Ultra can do to your CPU with all that extra heat and that extra 10 or 15 dollars is really well spent. All things said and done you really must have this amazing combo.

Note: After our regular set of tests by popular demand we fed a cat into the intake (well it was sucked out of my hands from 3 meters away) of the Dustbuster 5800cfm and were pleasantly surprised that the entire cat was processed and exhausted with no remnants what so ever.  Dust is not going to be a problem for this baby.