CPU Cooler Charts 2008, Part I - Loosing your Cool? : The Heat is On – CPU Coolers Compared
Source: Tom's Hardware UK – Keywords: CPU-Coolers, Phenom, Core2
Categories: Hardware
The Heat is On – CPU Coolers Compared
It’s been over 7 years since Tom’s Hardware first published a comparative test of CPU coolers. At the time, there was a distinct lack of awareness regarding the importance of this component and a pronounced dearth of critical tests with knowledgeable analysis. In December of 2000, we published the first CPU cooler comparison worldwide, comparing 17 different models. Compared to today’s technology, the coolers of that time seem like amateurish and provisional designs. Many of the companies that are well-established brand names in cooling today only became aware of this very profitable field through our tests. While some companies have since exited stage left, others have evolved into real heavyweights.
Things became critical for AMD in September of 2001 when we published an article detailing how CPU cooler failure could lead to instant destruction of Athlon processors. The situation was remedied by integrating a thermal sensor and a protective circuit on the motherboards. Meanwhile, Tom’s Hardware has regularly published CPU cooler roundups and comparisons, with the field of candidates growing each time.
Around this time, Zalman, a company that has meanwhile become a well-known and respected brand, was only just getting started. Our first review of the young company’s products weren’t very favourable, either. However, things have really turned around for Zalman over the past two years, and the company created a real winner with its CNPS9700, which it introduced in the middle of 2006.
But enough history for now. Now the curtain opens for our largest comparative test of 2007/2008. In no other class of components are the differences between individual products as pronounced as they are today where CPU coolers are concerned. After all, the prospective buyer can’t tell what kind of cooling performance to expect just from looking at a cooler, let alone its retail box. Of course, it’s just as impossible to tell how difficult installation will be – and if the buyers relied on the veracity of the colourful marketing promises on the box, they’d be lost anyway. At any rate, more than 30 companies sent us their current creations for review.
| 3R System | Antazone | Arctic Cooling |
| Asus | Coolermaster | Coolink |
| Cooljag | EKL | Foxconn |
| Gigabyte | Glacialtech | Hiper |
| Joujye Dynatron | MSI | Nexus |
| Noctua | OCZ | Scythe |
| Silentmaxx | Silverstone | Spire |
| Tacens | Thermaltake | Titan |
| Verax | Watercool | Xigmatec |
| Zalman | Zaward | Zerotherm |
One thing that we can say in advance is that this group was good for quite a number of surprises. For example, some of the most well-known manufacturers, that have built their reputation on the quality of their products, have recently released some models that proved to be unusable in our test. Either they tortured our tester with a catastrophic installation procedure, disqualified themselves due to their (in our eyes) non-existent cooling performance or proved to be so loud in operation as to make any kind of concentrated work impossible.
Due to a number of abysmally bad test results that we have been witnessing over the past years, we have finally decided to introduce the test result “failed”. We hope this will help our readers to make educated decisions they won’t regret and save them the trouble of having to return unsuitable or simply defective products. In order to ensure that these “black sheep” stand out among the more than 80 test candidates, we have marked them accordingly in our product overview.
- Next page The Test Platform and Methodology -...
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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