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Four new coolers on heat pipes: Autumn 2006

Author: Date: 11.10.2006

Benchmarking

We will be examining the performance of the cooling systems as usual on two CPU platforms: AMD and Intel, with their configurations looking like this:

We intentionally selected not the "hottest" processors but overclocked, because we are not testing value systems. Note that on AMD Athlon 62 3200+ the voltage was raised from 1.4V to 1.7V, which is a substantial voltage rise. In this situation, heat emission of this processor can be compared with that of its dual-core brethren AMD Athlon X2.

The testing method should be familiar to you, and the coolers are compared in the three most popular operation modes:

Simple. In this mode, the computer is simply idle, with the power-saving technologies disabled. This mode of testing shows a typical temperature of the CPU while you are surfing around the Internet, working with the office application, watching films or performing other simple tasks on the computer. That is the second most popular operation mode. While you are playing your favorite 3D game, inside the CPU unit the processor and the video card are exploited to the full emitting much heat. The special feature of this mode is that the atmosphere inside the housing is strongly heated up by the video card. Maximum load. That is the mode of maximum load upon the processor in which the processor makes use of all of its computational resources and emits maximum heat it is able for. To run tests in this mode, we used the S&M 1.8.1 utility.

The coolers which allow for regulation of the fan's rotational speed are tested on the maximum and minimum speeds, respectively. The room temperature on the moment of tests was 26-27°С. On the graphs, as you can see, under the cooler name there is the real rotational speed of the fan (in parentheses).

First, let's see what the coolers can show with AMD processors:

Practically all the coolers showed the same cooling efficiency, and among them it was ThermalTake Mini Typhoon which ran a bit ahead but not so much to be called a leader. It is much more surprising to see that both the coolers with variable rotational speed show almost the same results at the maximum and minimum rotational speeds. Needless to say, we ran a number of additional rechecks and their results showed the same pattern. The only thing to blame is the specific nature of air flows within the housing and which strongly affect the cooling efficiency. As a recheck of this theory, we conducted an additional test of two coolers with the opened side wall of the CPU unit, and here are the results:

The results for Zalman CNPS8000 have essentially reversed, and the pattern of results produced with the SilverStone cooler has changed by a bit less than expected – the coarse base makes itself felt. It should be noted that the housing used on the test bench has no airway from the side wall to the cooler fan (CAG) because most modern coolers are already equipped with it. With this uncomplicated device, the blades of the CPU fan will be blown by cool air from outside of the CPU unit but not the heated air from within, which means the CPU temperature will be less dependent on other system components and air flows inside.

The second stage was testing coolers on the Intel platform.

Again, the coolers show very close results, with some advantage of ThermalTake Mini Typhoon and Titan TTC-NK32TZ. Zalman CNPS8000 has given in its positions a little bit, but let's not judge it strictly – this is first a very compact cooler which despite its minimum size was able competing on par with such strong contenders. On the other hand, we can find any excuse for the poor results of the cooler SilverStone NT06 - it is one of the largest and one of the most expensive cooling device of all the reviewed, but it is well behind all the other competitors. Judging by the numerous flaws in the design, we can blame the engineering shortcomings and carelessness in production for that.

In the end, we produce four coolers which are approximately close at performance but are very difference in the design and price. Finally, let's give a brief summary for each.

Zalman CNPS8000

Despite its small size, the cooler is quite capable of competing against quite massive cooling systems, and most importantly, it can cope with any modern processor without much pressure upon the ear of the users. For compact multimedia systems, that is an important factor. Among the design specifics, we note the compatibility to all the most relevant processor sockets and ease of installation. Of the shortcomings are restrictions imposed upon the space around the processor, but you can't do anything about that - this is a tradeoff for compactness and very small height of the cooler. For all these niceties you would have to fork out for as much as 50 US dollars. Therefore, this cooler can be recommended to owners of compact systems where only low-profile coolers are installed. On the other hand, for owners of standard coolers it makes sense to turn to other coolers which could provide higher cooling efficiency at lower cost.

Titan TTC-NK32(34)TZ

This absolutely typical cooler on heat pipes has shown excellent efficiency as compared to other participants of the tests, but its most important advantage is not in the design features but in its incredibly attractive price – as low as 17(!) US dollars. This is almost three times as cheap compared the cooler by Zalman. Although the noise level produced by this cooling device is distinctly heard from outside the housing, it can't be called annoying. Among the shortcomings of Titan TTC-NK32(34)TZ, we call its compatibility to only one platform: either LGA775 or s754/939/940/AM2, despite that the fastening system itself is different in only the pressure plates. If necessary, this cooler could be easily turned into a universal cooler. To all appearances, Titan preferred the path of dividing the platforms for some marketing considerations. Another shortcoming is the brittleness of fastening the fan to the radiator, but that is not critical unless you plan a frequent replacement of the cooler. All in all, we can state with confidence that Titan has produced incredibly cheap coolers on heat pipes which demonstrate a decent efficiency and are a good value for money. That is why we award them with our "Best Buy" reward.

SilverStone Nitrogon NT06

The new cooler by SilverStone looks impressive: a massive radiator with three thick heat pipes, a powerful thickened 120x120x32 mm fan, so we can say it has all it takes to be the best. But it isn't. The only cause of that is seen in the defect of the cooler base which is not uniform and thus worsens the heat transfer. Perhaps other specimens will be free from this shortcoming, but we won't state that with certainty. Another shortcoming is the noisy fan which buzzes even at low RPM. The third shortcoming is the lack of support for Socket AM2, the fourth is the inconvenient installation on motherboards with closely positioned memory banks and massive radiators on the chipset. We'd rather not mention the engineering flaw in the speed regulator which can stop the fan completely.

Well, we've got quite a long list of shortcomings, but what about the advantages? Frankly, I can hardly recall any, let alone the powerful blowing of the space near the processor. There is one more thing to recall - the SilverStone Nitrogon NT06 cooler has demonstrated the poorest efficiency based on the results of test, despite being the most expensive of all the <65$ coolers in this review. In the end, we'd rather not recommend this cooler for purchase. Let's hope that SilverStone will do a serious error-correction and make the right conclusions.

ThermalTake Mini Typhoon (Value Pack)

Another superb coolers by ThermalTake stands out with its efficiency and is indeed pleasant to the eye. With the release of the second revision, the cooler has acquired two additional fans which overclocking fanciers can make use of for additional blowing such important system components like the radiator of the north bridge or memory modules. Of high praise is also that the cooler is fastened to all the platforms manually without any other tools and most importantly, without having to remove the motherboard out of the CPU unit! Few coolers can boast that. With good performance level, ThermalTake Mini Typhoon does not get on the user's ears and so deserves a high rank based on the results of today's test. The price of this cooling device is also affordable enough: about 39 $. Our verdict: "Recommended".

We appreciate Sunrise-Rostov for the hardware presented for tests.

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	Content:
	Page 1 - Zalman CNPS8000, Titan TTC-NK32(34)TZ Page 2 - SilverStone Nitrogon NT06, ThermalTake Mini Typhoon Page 3 - Tests Top Stories: MoBo: ECS X58B-A (Intel X58) ASUS Rampage II Extreme (Intel X58) MSI DKA790GX and ECS A780GM-A Ultra MSI P7NGM (NVIDIA GeForce 9300) Intel X58 and ASUS P6T Deluxe MSI P45 Neo2 (Intel P45) Foxconn A7GMX-K (AMD 780G) VGA Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 – a new leader in 3D graphics! ECS HYDRA GeForce 9800GTX+. Water-cooled and SLI "all-in-one" Radeon HD 4830 CrossFire - better than Radeon HD 4870! XFX GeForce GTX 260 Black Edition in the SLI mode Leadtek WinFast PX9500 GT DDR2 – better than GeForce 9500GT DDR-3 Palit Radeon HD 4870 Sonic: exclusive, with unusual features Palit HD 4850 Sonic: almost Radeon HD 4870, priced as HD 4850 CPU & Memory: GSkill high-capacity memory modules CPU Intel Core i7-920 (Bloomfield) DDR3 memory: late 2008 CPU AMD Phenom X3 8750 (Toliman) AMD Phenom X4 9850 – a top-end CPU at affordable price CPU Intel Atom 230 (Diamondville) Chaintech Apogee GT DDR3 1600