Overclockers Pulse Heatsink Showdown! Comprehensive Air Cooling Roundup

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=158187
Review performed by www.overclockerspulse.com c/o Spawne32 (Owner, Founder)
Updated 10/28/2007

Introduction

As the computer market continually grows and processor power continues to increase, we see the intense need for better cooling solutions every day that passes. Now in the year 2007, there are many manufacturers of computer cooling parts all fighting for the title of best cooling solution. This review will put the products of these manufacturers to the test and compare them side by side, giving you, the user, an accurate and realistic comparison to help you make your choice when searching for an aftermarket cooling solution.

For the newcomers to aftermarket computer cooling, there are several methods of increasing performance ranging from the utmost basic cooling solutions, to some of the most extreme solutions that only the hardest of the hardcore computer users will be running. Our focus today will be the easier of these solutions, air cooling. We will be using some of the latest equipment available on the market, as well as some older tried and true air cooling solutions and see how well they perform with newer CPU’s on the market.

That being said, I am proud to present to you the first set of results in a series of testing that will continuously provide accurate results and comparisons in an easy to read manner. These charts will give you a better understanding of just how well advertised heatsinks perform in the real world. Stripped of their fancy advertising slogans and images, we put them to the ultimate test using the latest quad core processors, and today, you get the see the results of the first round.

Testing Methodology

Like any review, there needs to be a method to our madness. This review will be carried out using the following components.

* Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (B3 Stepping)
* Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 Rev.3.3 P965 Express
* Arctic Silver Ceramique 22 gram tube
* Core Temp Beta 0.94 (Thermal Monitor)
* Prime95 Version 24.14
* HSPC Standard 'Top Deck' Tech Station 1.0
* Windows Xp Service Pack 2
* Yate Loon D12SM-12 and D12SL-12 Case Fans

We will be using a HSPC Standard “Top Deck” Tech Station for the review to rule out the variable of provided case airflow. All computer cases have a different “airflow pattern”, so in order to keep the tests uniform and balanced we use an open air test rig so that the measurements are not skewed in favor or against one heatsink as far as case airflow is concerned.

[img width=500 height=375]http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u47/Spawne32/yhst-65556269779593_1964_6445338.jpg[/img]

The processor we will be using for CPU load averages is an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 quad core processor, providing performance data using one of the newest CPU types with multi-core technology. The quad core processor will provide the best results for testing a heatsinks performance at dissipating CPU heat.

Another area to note is the thermal paste we will be using in the review. We will be using the same thermal paste for all the heatsinks tested as to provide uniform measurements and rule out temperature variations created by either poor or good thermal paste. Thermal paste is the buffer between the CPU and the heatsink which helps to improve thermal transfer due to microscopic imperfections in the metals on both surfaces. The thermal paste fills these cracks and grooves to create perfect contact on both surfaces. Poorly made thermal paste can inhibit thermal transfer, thus increasing CPU temperatures, where as good thermal paste can improve performance likewise. The paste we will be using for the review will be Arctic Silver Ceramique, a community standard in thermal paste; it provides good thermal transfer at a great price.

Our CPU stress testing program will be Prime95, “a Windows-based program written by George Woltman that is used by GIMPS, a distributed computing project dedicated to finding new Mersenne prime numbers.”* This program will cause the CPU to generate its maximum heat output, giving us the ability to test our heatsinks’s ability to dissipate this heat.

Finally, the program used to take CPU Load averages will be the Core Temp Beta program, version 0.94. As our CPU is not a G0 stepping processor, the most accurate results were obtained using this version. The Core Temp program itself has been widely known to be the most accurate program to use while monitoring CPU temperatures in Windows and you can find the program at this location http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/ as well as the downloads section of our site (ocpulse.com).

Testing Results

The testing results you see listed below are setup in two charts, one chart will provide the maximum CPU load temperatures achieved, averaged across all 4 cores, against the ambient temperature. The second chart you will see will measure the delta (dT), a more accurate measurement which provides compensation for the fluxuations in the ambient temperatures.


The chart featured above measures the average cpu load temperature after 1 hour of Prime95, running small FFT’s.


The chart featured above measures the average “delta”, an equation that compensates for ambient temperature fluxations.


The chart featured above shows the priceerformance ratio of each heatsink tested.

:mrgreen: