The Verax G02 reviewed

[a_h]

It took quite long, but here are my experience with that piece of hardware!

For the impatient:

Is it good? Yes. Would I recommend it? Yes if you don't have 2 left hands.

First impression:

Large 2mm copper plate, plan surface, yet not polished, but well manufactured. Fan already fit and decoupled from the plate. Supplied thermal paste in a small bag (!!) is a joke, installation manual provided.

Right into it...

The appearance of the G02 is impressive, what a monster! But it has to cool the beast ). The copper plate has partially some oxide on it but that isn't harmfull for the heat transfer at all, it's just an optical issue.

Installation aka back from hell

Yep, installation - if you seriously try to make it perfect - is the hell. Manual says remove the rivets. Guys take my tip and just pull the little head of the rivet, you'll see it holds the rivet which can be taken out easily if you know that. I didn't know.

2nd remove the heatsink. Believe me try a hair dryer. Without you don't have any chance, don't get a shock if the heatsink moves suddenly.

Remove the pad, try pulling it of, use alcohol to clean rests. Enjoy the Parhelia logo.

Clean the copper plate (just the back of course).

Apply thermal paste (I used arctic silver), apply a bit more than essentially needed because - and that's a major part from the installation hell - you cannot fit the whole as it should. If you think of cpus, generally the tip is given to place the heatsink on the cpu and don't move it again. Impossible with the G02 due to rather large rivets. You can try to make it smaller before mounting. Maybe you should get some help (thanks Mik!). Force the rivets through.

RELAX.

Installation is really a bit hard, but I'm sure with my tips you won't run in any big troubles.

Better?

Subjectivly I would say the P core runs a bit cooler now and of course the memory gets cooled too (due to the large plate). But I cannot provide you with any numbers since I don't have a thermistor/multimeter combo yet.

Didn't try to overclock too. However comparing the technical specs of 40x40mm fans and the 80x80mm Verax KT2 fan, the cooling should at least be equal.

Conclusion

Generally I would recommend the Verax G02, I'm satisfied. However it's not easy to fit.

Is it silent?

Hehe you have to wait until the end. Sure it's silent! Hey I paid for it! If you come close to the fan (<5cm) I can hear a high noise, seems to come from the electrical commutator. 10-15cm away that part is inaudible. Outside the case I experience the sound of silence...what a relief. I was accustomed to my passivly cooled nvidia (what a piece of crap, that was its best property) and now I can enjoy that again.

And now I'm going to enjoy "Alien the director's cut", without that high pitch from the P...


Hope I could help you! Hannes

PS: retail Parhelia 128MB @ 220MMHz

[gangster]

Great job! Appreciate your taking the time to go into detail.

I too discovered the "rivets" the hard way when I decided to just apply as3 to the stock cooler. I wish I had mentioned it here-sorry.

Since then I have put a better hs/fan on but it's too loud so I think I will try one of these.

Thanks again.

[Lim]

Hi a_h,
Can you post some pictures on?

[gangster]

You said you didn't oc, did you before the Verax? A before and after would be nice to know info. I assume you never oc'd it before.

I just ordered the G02. Will report results also.

EDIT:

I have oc'd mine since adding a home-made cooler with as3, but it's an oem card. 225/610 with Infineon 3.3. My home-made cooler is much cooler to the touch than the stock unit, so I don't expect any improvement with the Verax. It has the fan from hell on it now so it's loud, but cool! I hope for silence, and cool, with the Verax.

[X-Caliber]

Does it block the adjacent PCI slot?

Thanks !!

-V-

[a_h]

Hi guys!

It was a pleasure! Hope I could help you a bit!

Sorry gangster, but I didn't overclock my Parhelia before, I thought of it, but didn't want to mess with the pinsfile or this strange o'c feature of the mtsu...

I'm sorry X-Caliber, but the verax stays just 1cm from the second (!!) next card away, no chances to put something into the next slot (neighbour slot).

@Lim: I'm going to attach a pic to the original post!

Edit: board says, I've to link to the old thread:

http://forums.murc.ws/showthread.php?threadid=44290

Thanks for reading, Hannes

[X-Caliber]

Hi,

where did you put the pictures, I can't find them.

[a_h]

Hi X-Caliber!

Sorry, I don't have any chances yet to put my pics up, I just linked to the original thread back - there I posted one pic from the G02 (from the verax-page http://www.verax.de).

Hannes

[gangster]

I got mine today, will install 12/26. No digital camera though, unless my wife got me one for Xmas! (And I asked for one too...)

[X-Caliber]

Thanks! keep me posted.

[gangster]

Rumor has it...I AM getting the digital camera for Xmas. I hope I can figure it out!

The Verax looks over-priced to me, it's not as impressive a piece of hardware as I expected. But I could be wrong, it may perform great. We'll soon find out.

[gangster]

Well, I did the installation today.

Removal of the old hs/fan is alot easier if you pull the pins out of the rivots as a_h stated. The tough part for me was inserting the new rivots thru the base of the Verax plate. Pushing plastic pins (rivots) thru a copper plate when the pins barely fit was difficult. The pins have to be perpendicular to the copper base plate at all times to pass thru. I had to (yikes!) tap them thru, I couldn't do it with thumb pressure. I think a little lubricant would have been a good idea now. Oh well...

After the pins are through you are pretty much done, but I was very disappointed with the minimal pressure applied between the copper base plate and the gpu by the retaining pins (which have springs). I squirmed the heatsink around on the thermal grease (I used as3 too) to ensure an even distribution, but the retention was light enough so that the hs/fan's weight could stilll make it gravitate "down" a bit once the card was standing in the slot. This may not be an issue, not sure, I'm used to seeing more pressure. The weight of the verax assembly is significant, but I think they could have done better here. I don't believe I used too much as3, I've used it several times before.

On the other hand, the Verax fan is nicely mounted to the base. It floats on the base with its own spring assembly so it's quiet.

Removal of the assembly is something I haven't figured out yet as the pins are only assesible by going past/thru the fan blades...

As for the cooling, it really moves ALOT of air for slow turning blades! And it is QUIET! As advertised here. My oc's are better than the stock cooler with as3, but a little less than my home-made cooler with the fan from hell, probably the same if a quiet fan was substituted. So this is ok too.

@X-Caliber: pci slot #1 is completely covered. pci slot #2 is useless too because the intake for the fan would only have a 1mm gap to draw in air if I squezzed a card into this slot, no good! I moved my soundcard fron slot 3 to 4 so the verax had plenty of space to draw in all that air, I didn't HAVE to, but it improved on the airflow I thought. Some of this may be unique to my motherboard...?

Sorry, no pictures yet, I get to pick my own camera next week or so. (And I need suggestions!) I will post pictures if you're still interested.

@a_h: don't feel badly, I didn't base my purchase on your review, I wanted one of these for months!

I will probably rma it, not sure yet. It still seems way overpriced @$69 considering the poor fit and amount of space it requires. It is the only choice though, except for the also poor fitting Zalman.

Sorry for such a long post, but I figure a few folks are interested in all this info since it's been a popular topic lately.

Until next time...let's all be carefull out there!

EDIT:

15% restocking fee.

[gangster]

I was able to better secure the Verax by putting a small plastic washer between the base plate and retaining pin head.

I will now be keeping the cooler.

[a_h]

Great you like it!

Sorry didn't have the time to answer like I wanted!

pci slot #2 is useless too

At least for me, the #2 has about 1cm space left, so no problems here.

the retention was light enough so that the hs/fan's weight could stilll make it gravitate "down" a bit once the card was standing in the slot

Yup, but since the cooler is resting on the pci interface of the next slot, I think it's ok. My (white) springs are pretty ok, at least they shot around during my trys to get them seated...

it's not as impressive a piece of hardware as I expected

For that nice sum of money... I think you're right. They are expensive, but sitting here & listening I'm satisfied.

Hey gangster, could you post your overclocks? Would be interesting!

Have a nice day, Hannes

[gangster]

Hey! Glad you could reply.

I can't use the 2nd pci slot with that little space so the slot is no good for me. I'd block off the cooler intake I think.

My cooler is not resting on the pci slot riser, I checked, but it's close. Wouldn't this eliminate the floating fan effect on the verax base plate if it was in contact with something?

Since the cooler "hangs" below the card when it's installed and it's heavy I figured it was too loose a fit.

My oc's are 220/605 with the verax. I was 225/605 with my home made cooler. This is an oem card with infineon 3.3 memory. The difference is insignicant, but it's measurable. I also oc'd the stock card except I put as3 on to replace the matrox "pad". It did 210/605 then. So I went from 200/500 out of the box to 220/605 and that's a big improvement overall!

Take care, Garr