Over the past few years Thermaltake has come up with a number of really good CPU coolers such as the Silent 775, BigTyphoon 120VX and more recently the V1. However, when it comes to VGA coolers we feel that Thermaltake has had limited success, with the TMG series being their best yet. The Schooner and Extreme Giant III for example were not products we would have recommended, as the installation process was far too fiddly and the performance was average to say the least.

Therefore we have been waiting quite some time for a good Thermaltake VGA product that can match the quality of their CPU coolers, cases and even power supplies, and today I think we may have it. The Thermaltake DuOrb is a universal VGA cooler designed to work with a long list of ATI and Nvidia graphics cards. Just recently Thermaltake has brought back the old “Orb” design with a range of new CPU coolers, the most recent of which being the DuOrb (CL-P0464). Using a similar design Thermaltake has created a CPU and VGA version of the DuOrb.

In the past Thermaltake has had some success with the Orb idea, though not every Orb cooler has been an instant hit. Therefore we have not been quick to judge the VGA DuOrb as we took our time to test the installation process on a number of GeForce and Radeon graphics cards. Furthermore we will be comparing the DuOrb to some of the best VGA coolers currently available to see how it really stacks up.

Recently we have spent some time testing the new Arctic-Cooling Accelero Xtreme VGA coolers which have provided us with some very impressive results. The DuOrb shares a similar price tag to that of the Accelero Xtreme, though this is where the similarities end. The DuOrb is a far more compact VGA cooler that suits a range of new graphics cards including the Radeon HD 3870 and GeForce 8800 GT, both of which are not supported by the Accelero Xtreme. However at $50 US you do seem to get a hell of a lot less with the Thermaltake DuOrb, so how does it stack up performance wise?