Intel CPU Heatsink S775 Roundup June 2006

Cooling/CPU Cooling by piotke @ 2006-06-20

We compare nine different Intel socket 775 heatsinks from Thermalright, Zalman, Titan, Scythe, GlobalWin and Thermaltake in our latest roundup. Can they prevent a Pentium 4 Prescott from melting without ruining our ears? Let?s find out.

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Results and Conclusion

Results

The fan speed was regulated using a Zalman fan mate changing between high and low setting. First ranked by performance:

Madshrimps (c)


  • The Zalman CNPS9500 AT takes an impressive lead of 8?C at high speed over the Intel stock cooling, noise wise it also is considerably better, at low fan speed setting however the Zalman scores amongst the worse with +9?C over the Intel stock cooling, however at this setting the noise drops to ambient noise level.

  • The GlobalWin with its integrated heat column shows some impressive results, with the high speed fan it only trails the best by 1?C and with low fan speed it?s offers an excellent performance/noise balance!

  • The Jungle 512 from Thermaltake with its large fan is able to keep up with the competition and this at lower noise levels, the Silent 775 however is trailing the pack with high noise levels and high CPU temperatures.

  • The Katana from Scythe has already proved to be quite on S939 and its S775 counterpart doesn?t fail to impress, offering the lowest noise level of the performance heatsinks with the fan at ?high?, setting the fan to ?low? speed only causes temps to increase by 3?C and noise levels are close to ambient.

  • The Thermalright HR-01 with its fan duct is able to outperform the stock Intel cooling, however due to the increased heat inside the case the fans inside the power supply start spinning faster, and they mount the noise level considerably.

  • The Data Cooler made by Titan offers better performance than the Intel stock cooling at lower noise levels, the all aluminum Titan cooler (in black) drops noise levels also but has lower performance. The Titan heat pipe cooler with its fan at low speed offers a respectable noise/performance balance, at high fan speed the performance is not quite what one would expect from a heat pipe powered unit.


    Let?s focus on noise production:

    Madshrimps (c)


    Low fan speed scores best! Duh! But which one keeps the CPU coolest? At the ambient noise level the Scythe Katana 775 takes the lead closely followed by the Titan heat pipe unit. In the next ?noise group?, if you can call it that, the Scythe is again ahead but CPU wise there are more interesting units here like the GlobalWin, Thermaltake and Zalman.

    At the other end of the scale sits the Intel stock cooling which is really screaming loud with its fan running at 5200rpm.

    As a last test let?s see what effect the rear fan has, when deactivated the CPU temp will rise, but by how much?

    Madshrimps (c)


    The compact heatsinks like the stock Intel and Silent 775 only show a 2?C increase, the slightly larger units like the Zalman and GlobalWin depend more on the rear fan with an increase now of 4?C; however oddly the Zalman @ low fan speeds suffers less from the lack of airflow than the Zalman @ high. The Tower heatsinks (Thermalright, Katana, Titan heat pipe) with low fan (or none) speed really need a well ventilated environment in order to shine.

    Conclusive Thoughts

    The Intel Stock cooler is without a doubt insufficient to keep a Prescott at a mere 3Ghz running cool without sounding like a jet engine, luckily there is plenty of choice for those seeking to reduce noise without sacrificing performance. From those coolers which resemble the Intel the most the GlobalWin really stands out due to its use of a heat column which gives it the performance edge.

    Those coolers which blow air over the motherboard horizontally were able to keep the CPU quite cool and this at extremely low noise levels, the Scythe Katana 775 was the easiest to install, the Titan and Zalman require motherboard removal, but once that was out of the way they delivered impressive numbers, with the CNPS9500 AT from Zalman taking the lead.

    The Thermalright HR-01 S775 version we tested earlier here, you can see that it really likes good airflow and it makes good use of the air duct, depending on your current hardware you can obtain an extremely silent system, however in our test system the power supply fans were the party poopers, their speed ramped up and caused the system to quite loud.

    Pricing

    Price $Price ?
    Thermaltake Jungle 5123030
    Thermaltake Silent 7753520
    Scythe Katana 7752020
    Titan TTC-NH01TB/932/PW1213
    Titan TTC-NK34TB2020
    DataCooler DC-775B932Z/PW1213
    GlobalWin GP94NPHH2930
    Zalman CNPS9500 AT5040
    Thermalright HR-01 7754550

    Note: The Global Win GP94NPHH is 2600RPM version. The 3500RPM version is GP92NPHH.


    We hope this roundup was of use to you and if we missed a S775 (only!) heatsink, please let us know in our forums!

    We thank the following companies for sending their products for evaluation:

  • Scythe: Katana 775
  • Bacata: Thermalright HR-01 775
  • Thermaltake: Silent 775 and Jungle 512
  • Titan: TTC-NH01TB/932/PW, TTC-NK34TB and DataCooler DC-775B932Z/PW
  • GlobalWin: GP94NPHH
  • Zalman: CNPS9500 AT

    *Hint to manufacturers*: less is more, a short product name can help people remember what product was tested here,e.g: Katana: good, HR-01: good, CNPS9500 AT: borderline, GP94NPHH: bad, TTC-NH01TB/932/PW: come again? Use clear product names instead of abbreviations and weird product codes.

    Questions/Comments: forum thread
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