Source: Tom's Hardware UK – Keywords: CPU-Coolers, Phenom, Core2
Categories: Hardware
The Criteria - Cooling, Noise and Installation
A cooler can receive a maximum score of 30 points in our tests, which can be achieved in three disciplines, namely cooling performance, noise and installation.
The lower a cooler can keep the CPU’s core temperature, the better its cooling performance is. In this instance, noise does not play a role at all. If, for example, a product is unable to cool the processor to the point where it does not have to throttle its clock speed, that cooler will receive 0 points. Of course it is entirely possible that the same cooler could have no trouble at all cooling a processor with lower thermal power dissipation, but we specifically chose Intel’s Core 2 Quad QX6850 for reasons explained above. Points are awarded separately for each kind of cooling, e.g. water, air, compressor, passive, etc. Thus, a passive cooler may score 10 points where a water cooler may only be awarded 8, even though the water cooler is able to keep the core temperature lower.
If the cooler’s shipping box specifically advertises the product as “Intel quad-core ready” it automatically fails if it cannot back up this claim in practice. Some of the review candidates in our roundup are sold for use with lower thermal dissipation grades – and are marked accordingly on their retail boxes. These are tested separately on a Core 2 Duo processor.
We measure the noise produced by the coolers at a distance of 50 cm. Any sounds produced by the product, such as whirring, rattling and buzzing, are therefore also a component of our measurement. A passive cooler receives 10 points. If the noise is so high that it makes working on the PC impossible or if it produces distracting noises such as a whine, it scores 0 points.
Under the heading called installation, we rate the ease of use when mounting and installing the cooler. A product cannot reach a score f 10 points if the motherboard has to be removed from the PC case in order for the cooler to be installed. If more than two hands are required for the installation of the product, meaning a second person has to assist, the product receives a score of 0 points – and this is not as rare an occurrence as you might expect.
These draconian measures are our response to the large number of coolers in this roundup. Otherwise, all coolers’ scores would congregate somewhere in the middle ground.
The final score is not exclusively a result of the individual disciplines’ scores, either. Sometimes, the overall impression can’t be expressed simply as a summation of the three test criteria alone.
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I think people reading this need to bare in mind 2 things:
1) the test is using a extremely high power processor, if you were to test these coolers on a dual core CPU you may see very different trends with regards to noise/performance. The ninja is famous for quiet cooling at lower settings, passively there are few better heat sinks than it.
2) the test is not been done in an enclosure, in some cases the very high level or very low level of airflow could make a drastic difference to the performance of some of these coolers.
The Noctua can be installed as above (airflow vertical) or twisted 90 degrees (air horizontal). Most people I expect would install it for horizontal air flow, so the air would be vented straight out the back of the case. Would this have an effect on the efficiency of the heatpipes??
With a case that has a good airflow like the Antec P18* the Ninja works fairly well, how would the case´s airflow affect the cooling performance?
My p180b with the Ninja plus rev B and a Noctua NF-S12-1200 works well with the Q6600, yesterday I did a Prime session, after 1h max Tjunction was 61 Core 1, core 3 was the coolest at 57.
Can you tell me why you did not test the Scythe Ninja Plus Rev. B with 4 fans as anyone who would be using a Core 2 Extreme cpu and hoping to overclock would instantly purchase at least an extra fan for the Ninja. I myself have the scythe Ninja Plus Rev. b and I brought it for 2 main reasons, it can be used fanless (this was never stated in this article) and you can add up 4 120mm fans to increase cooling effectiveness (again this was not stated in the article and its a big plus to anyone whose looking to buy one).
Can you clearly explain why you choose not to do the test in a enclosure. Surely you didn't take into account the effect intake and exhaust fans, they are the key things to helping the heatpipes working at there best. The cool air coming from the intake fan is what aids the heatpipes and the exhaust remove the hot air, again aiding the heatpipes to work.
When you try them in open air you lose a lot of the power of the heatpipe as there isn't as much of a contrast between the cold and hot air.
Guys pull me up if I'm wrong, but if I'm not you really should redo this test in a enclosure.
See above it does say "Part I", they might test the Ninja later..
I would like to see the ZALMAN 9500A 92mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler in the test at some point. I have found this to be a good cooler and many people I know like it as well.
I really can't understand why these reviews have been carried out with the fans trying to blow hot air back downwards through the cooling fins!!
I mean look at the pictures on the Scythe Ninja page of this review for example - they just scream out "WRONG!!!!!".
Even an 8 year old will tell you that hot air rises!! The ideal placement for the fan is therefore either on the side for horizontal airflow through the fins or underneath so the fan actually helps the already rising hot air to rise even quicker. I reckon you could easily drop most of the recorded temperatures by up to 10 Degrees or maybe even more by mounting the fan(s) anywhere but on top blowing down.
If you really had no choice but to mount on top because of interference from other motherboard components (in which case the cooler should lose points), then at least have the fan blow the hot air away from the heatsink fins and not back through them!!
Kulwant this is not always the case. There are many desktop cases that have a grill in the case over the CPU socket allowing fans to suck cold air from outside the case and blow it down on to the hot heatsink - thereby also cooling the voltage regulators. If you swap the fan round to blow upwards then it would be sucking warm air from inside the case to draw over the heatsink fins which would reduce cooling performance. Also it would be working against the flow in tower cases which have fans on the side blowing air in.
This review does lack the Zalman 9500 series of fans as Therlian mentioned (including the Fatal1ty versions) but I think a nod to them was placing 2 on the motherboard in the Skulltrail articles - clearly one of the best air coolers around
David_T, I appreciate some designs blow cold air brought in through a side panel and through the CPU heatsink - but you'll usually find that the flow of air is still horizontal and not top->down. Especially in the normal vertical orientation of the motherboard (i.e tower upright - not lying down). I'm not convinced that such designs necessarily blow cold air through the voltage regulators as once the air's been through the CPU heatsink - it's not exactly cold anymore. And I've yet to see a design that had a specific stream of cold air just for the voltage regulators.
The heatpipes favoured by a lot of the P35 chipset boards seem to be about simply getting some airflow through the voltage regulator heatsinks not necessarily cold airflow.
OK, I admit my comments don't necessarily apply to all heatsinks tested here - but the point is that in some cases I believe the tests are flawed and don't reflect the true potential of some of the solutions (e.g. the Scythe Ninja and possible some others too) simply because of the sub-optimal placement of the fans.
Hey people I think we have to reconsider our opinions about Zerotherm. Watch this http://www.pchs.it/forums/cooling/ [...] btf92.html