Scythe USA SCVSG-2000 VGA Cooler

Pros: worked great, slim design can be used in crossfire x double space with great airflow

Cons: scythe fan only worked for 3months then gave up the ghost, had to rig a 120mm fan up with wire ties, cheap cheap cheap

Other Thoughts: machine blue screened, over and over and after troubleshooting found the tension plate in the back had lost it spring so the heat sink was loose on gpu, had to re bend tension plate. four months into this vga cooler it is total garbage, go with another brand.......I am very disappointed cause I love the kamikaze fans and the other scythe products maybe I will rethink my loyalty

Pros: -very well built, does not feel or look cheap at all
-Knobs to adjust fan speed
-idle temps on my shader unlocked & crossfired 6950s: 28-35*C
-temps after 4 hours of BF3 on 1080p on ULTRA with absolutely no PCI slots in between the cars:
the sandwitched GFX card tops off at 75*C only on 60% fan speed and averaged at around 65*C. and the non-sandwitched one tops off at 60*C and averaged around 55*C.
the reference cooler i had would go up to a constant 95*C so a 20*C difference is amazing!
-still quieter than reference style fans, even at 100% fan speed
-fits 6950/6970 even though it does not "officially" list it.
-comes with heatsinks for pretty much everything.

Cons: -i had no more fan plugs on my motherboard so had to pull out the old IDE age power connector for my modular PSU :(
not a con to the product though

Other Thoughts: i admit, the instructions are pretty "what is going on" considering how they literally put every language on one fold out paper haha.
but other than that it is pretty intuitive so i figured it out.

worth the 40-50$ if you plan on keeping the card(s) for a while.

Pros: Fairly cheap
Works very well
2 slots!
Fan controller

Cons: Horrendous VRAM sinks, or at least the paste used on them
Fan connects to 3-pin connector on motherboard
Very wide (might not fit some cases)
Can be a huge pain to install due to it's design

Other Thoughts: I put this on my XFX 6970 (the one without the back plate instead of the initial reference model, without a BIOS switch and what not). The stock cooler would idle at the high 40's. When under load from a game I would average 93c, sometimes going as high as 98c at times. After putting this on I am now idling at 32c, and GPU-Z shows my max temp as 71c. That's a HUGE difference, especially for something that runs as hot as the 6970. I didn't use the stock VRAM heatsinks though, since the adhesive they put on them is absolutely horrible. I bought a set of VR001 sinks that I found for a decent price.

The fan is a very thin 120mm fan that works great, and it helps keep this at a 2 slot solution. That's hard to find for decent coolers where everything is 3 slots. I don't know why they didn't have a 4 pin PWM connection for the fan to connect back to the card itself instead of the 3 pin mobo connection. Then you wouldn't need the fan controller. Overall though a very solid product

Pros: Super thin, I bought this because my PCIx slots were very close and setting up 2 GTX 460s in SLI completely blocked my top cards fans, giving it an idle temp of about 60c. After installing this heatsink the idle temp immediately dropped to about 48c and it is way quieter.

Cons: The directions are nearly impossible to understand. I've installed a ton of heatsinks over the years and I couldn't imagine these directions being that bad. They didn't even include directions for the GTX 460 even though they drilled holes on the mounting bracket specifically for that card. Also, the fan power has to plug into the motherboard, not the card. This isn't a huge deal but I like being able to control my fan speed from MSI Afterburner. Additionally, the part of the heatsink that makes contact with the GPU does not fully cover the GTX 460 GPU, this doesn't seem to be an issue, though, because my temps are fine.

Other Thoughts: Be aware that the heatsink sticks out pretty far so you may have to remove any side panel case fans(i had to). Also, for anyone installing this in a GTX 460 you will want to use the A3 mounting holes (this is not mentioned in the awful directions).

Pros: Used this to replace a broken fan on on a Palit GTX460. Not only is it quieter, it cools much better. Fan controller is very high quality.

Cons: A little futzy to install. Take your time and look over the direction carefully.

Other Thoughts: Ran Furmark 1.9.1 in extreme burn in mode and temp never rose above 70c.

Pros: In a SLI configuration with 2 Zotac GTS 450's, GPU 1 was not getting enough air and would top out at 94-96C deg (204F) This cooler is a complete cure for that scenario it gets enough air and keeps the card at 42c deg (107F) idle and 62c deg (143F) under heavy load. Fan is quiet. Will fit on most every card because this is probably the only quality VGA cooler that will fit on my card. Does not exceed the overall spec width of the card in relation to the case mounting brackets in a 2 bracket wide card!!

Cons: Mounting design could be better but works! Once I had it all together it seemed that the back mounting plate was either touching or very close to electronics on the back of the card. I used 8 soft plastic washers between the plate and card and that is working well and nothing is touching and nothing is loose. That is why I dock it an egg also does not come with a 3pin to molex adapter if your all out of fan headers on the board.

Other Thoughts: Heat is an enemy to quality graphics. There is an optimal heat range these cards should run at under heavy loads and with the stock cooler GPU 1 exceeded this range!! Now that the card is in that range believe it or not my 3Dmark11 bench score went up 1000 points from 2933 to 3943

Pros: Helluva lot quieter than the stock coolers!
looks pretty cool

Cons: Stays the same temp, maybe a little warmer than stock cooler? a B to install the first time, the second time it only took like 5-10 mins but the instructions were very confusing

Other Thoughts: I thought it was supposed to lower my temps, with my 2 gtx 470's, soon to be 3.

Pros: Fits in 2 Slots, so you won't be loosing a slot below your video card. Does an amazing job of cooling a 4870 over the stock cooler. We're talking 20C cooler under full load from Stream apps because you can run this fan at 100% without going deaf. Thankfully the fan on this is a relatively standard size so if it dies it shouldn't be too hard to replace.

It comes with lots of extra heatsinks for all your RAM chips etc. It also comes with a nice screw down heatsink for the 58xx cards VRM chips. The screw holes on my stock 4870 were just a few mm off so I couldn't use it though.

Cons: I'm not too big a fan of the back mounting plate with the giant rubber pad being placed on all the GPU components on the back side of the card, but it does work. Save your stock backplate as you may want to use it instead.

This is a very wide cooler, you can guesstimate how well it'll fit with a 120mm fan. If you have a narrow case, forget it. It came right up to the side panel in mine.

Other Thoughts: If Scythe stops making these I will be mad. This cooler fits an absurd number of cards and it will be my go to replacement on any other video cards that are having trouble. Will definitely buy again.

It took me quite a while to get this installed on my 4870. Most of that time was spent properly cleaning off the RAM & other chips as the old thermal pads had left an oily residue that refused to come off. I ended up using a pencil eraser to get them clean without having to use too harsh a solvent. If you don't clean everything off, the thermal tape is going to come off, and then you'll have other problems.

Pros: Replaced my broken HIS 5770 cooler, temperature did not make any difference, unless you got a cheaper manufacturer cooler -.-

Cons: pretty hard to install, but I still manage to do it right

Other Thoughts: well built cooler, lots of different sockets for future use.

Pros: Massive temperature drops on my 6870! OCCT GPU stress test at 1024x786 res, shader complexity set to 8 would bring the stock cooler with fans on auto to 41% fan speed (forgot what fan rpm that was) with temps at 89-90C after five minutes! Running the same test for way longer with the Setsugen installed and at minimum fan speed (~650 rpm on the one I got) the gpu core temps are 76-77C, 1000rpm brings it down to 66-67C and maximum fan speed (~1875 rpm) brings it down to 59-60C! Even the fan on max speed is quieter than the stock cooler at roughly 35% which was what my card usually hit during gaming. Minimum fan speed idle temps are at 31C, max fan speed is only 1-2C lower. Manages to maintain a dual slot form factor both below and above the card, most aftermarket coolers make the card nearly 3 slots large hanging lower than the stock cooler, and the mounting hardware above the card sometimes adds another 5mm ie. Scythe's Musashi which I have on a 4890.

Cons: Total pain to install. Although lower profile above the card than the Musashi with it's threaded posts and thumb nuts, you're basically poking screws through the mounting holes blind. There are no heatsinks included that properly fit the VRM section of the reference 6870 because between each chip is a pair of surface mount components that are taller. I had to cut two of the 10x22mm wide heatsinks in half to properly cover each one. Like nearly all aftermarket coolers, it doesn't exhaust hot air out so make sure your case has good airflow. It also sticks out further from the motherboard than the stock cooler so I can't use the side case fan hole unless I use a slim 12mm fan, this can also be a problem for narrower cases (fits my CM 690 II Advanced).

Other Thoughts: VRM temps under load are pretty similar to stock, seems the 6870's don't need as much cooling there since the fan doesn't even sit directly over them. I was able to reuse the stock mounting bracket vs using the included one which has a rubber bumper that rests directly over the back of the card (and on top of a bunch of small surface mounted parts!). I was NOT able to reuse the stock heatsink plate, there are too many areas which have to be trimmed which I discovered after cutting the area around the power ports =/ The heatsink can shift around a bit when installed due to the diameter of the screws and the holes on the card, heatshrink tubing or maybe a ballpoint pen ink tube on the screws might work to take up the play(used this trick for the Musashi)l. Crossfire/SLI setups still work best with 3 slot space between each card so there is one slot gap between the two dual slot cards, which luckily my motherboard does.