You can really get bogged down in the pros and cons of opting for an aftermarket GPU cooler. Cooling kits, like this here Icy Vision Rev 2 from Gelid, are a great way to reduce temperatures and free up some extra overclocking potential.
But despite their obvious benefits they're tricky to recommend to everyone.
Firstly, it depends on whether you are simply looking to upgrade from the stock cooler that's attached to your existing card, or are looking into buying a stock card and third-party cooler as an alternative to a post-reference, factory-overclocked graphics card like EVGA's GTX 560 Ti DS.
The big difficulty is that buying a stock GTX 560 Ti and this Gelid cooling kit works out more expensive than simply bagging the EVGA card on its own. And you don't have to fiddle around with screwdrivers if you just opt for the factory-overclocked option.
That still doesn't make it a nobrainer, though. The real kicker here is the extra performance. We installed this Icy Vision Rev 2 kit to a stock GTX 560 Ti and compared it to EVGA's 'super overclocked' version. Gelid's kit on the reference card took all the spoils – stable core clockspeeds above 1,000MHz, memory running at 4,200MHz, and load temperatures that never exceeded 55°C.
If you're looking to upgrade a stock cooler, this kit's perfect for you. Compared to a third-party card, it works out more expensive, but the Icy Vision Rev 2's cooling performance doesn't disappoint.
But it's not just about the cooling performance – if you really want to get the most out of your reference graphics card then the Gelid Icy Vision Rev 2 cooler will push your GPU all the way.
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