CPU Heatsink Roundup April 2007

Cooling/CPU Cooling by jmke @ 2007-04-14

We continue our testing of the latest CPU heatsinks on our reference system, this time new contestants from Coolermaster and Scythe enter the fray. Whether you’re looking for extreme silence or extreme performance, this roundup will help you decide.

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Coolermaster GeminII - Installation

Coolermaster GeminII - Installation

The installation method for both AMD/Intel platforms requires motherboard removal as the heatsink’s mounting brackets need to be fastened at the backside of the board;

Madshrimps (c)


Once is place the GeminII occupies a very large part of the motherboard, but leaves enough clearing for larger northbridge chipset coolers and memory modules with fancy heatspreaders:

Madshrimps (c)

Madshrimps (c)


Placed inside a case it’s surely is a tight fit, especially if you don’t have a maxi tower to work with:

Madshrimps (c)


The 120mm fans are mounted with screws unto the 2 rails, which in turn are screwed in place on the GeminII heatsink:

Madshrimps (c)


The fan bracket can be moved left/right a bit to make sure it fits:

Madshrimps (c)

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Comment from Rutar @ 2007/04/14
I hear the Darth Vader theme everytime I see the Gemini altough the results are quite a dissapointment =O

So it's time you get the dual 140 heatsink from Thermalright.
Comment from jmke @ 2007/04/14
why do you find the results for the GeminII a disappointment?
Comment from Rutar @ 2007/04/14
Quote:
Originally Posted by jmke View Post
why do you find the results for the GeminII a disappointment?
It is barely able to beat the Tuniq and the Ninia when using the second best fan on the market for noise performance. If you use 2 120s on the Ninia it will most likely annihilate it.

Hence, I assume that the fin or heatpipe design is flawed so Thermalright needs some better engineers as they simply are outclassed by Scythe and Tuniq.

Have they lost anyone in the past year so we have a Oskar Wu situation?


Can you get ahold of a pair of Silent Eagles? I'm sure Sharkoon would like their product to appear in more reviews, as it deserves it for being the best fan on the market.
Comment from jmke @ 2007/04/14
GeminII is Coolermaster fyi it's build for high performance, so logically, that it will fall behind when used with slower CFM fans; the design is not meant for this.
Coolermaster has another new Tower heatsink coming with 120mm support which will maybe challenge the Ninja and others alike

Sharkoon fan-wise, I'm testing with the amount of fans standard provided, I started with the NCB, need to continue with that one, otherwise I can start from scratch
Comment from Rutar @ 2007/04/14
oops


The age of Tornados and Deltas is over since the XP-120 came out so it is pretty much pointless to optimize it for noisy fans, especially since the Tower heatsinks max out a CPU already if you use those noisy fans.
Comment from jmke @ 2007/04/14
the idea behind the GeminII was to cool mosfets, chipsets, ram too, so I heard
Comment from Church of Noise @ 2007/04/17
Is there a possibility to test the Thermalright Ultra 120 (extreme or normal version) in the near future?
These seem to beat the Tuniq Tower and be very very silent (up to the point where one could use one without a fan on a non-oc'd E6600).

Just an idea of course
Comment from jmke @ 2007/04/18
I tested it here: http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticle&articID=496 while I'm sure it performs lovely with high speed fans, at low CFM the Ultra doesn't shine
Comment from Rutar @ 2007/04/18
Quote:
Originally Posted by Church of Noise View Post
Is there a possibility to test the Thermalright Ultra 120 (extreme or normal version) in the near future?
These seem to beat the Tuniq Tower and be very very silent (up to the point where one could use one without a fan on a non-oc'd E6600).

Just an idea of course
If you like passive cooling, the Ninja is optimized for low speed fans or passive use with large fin spacing.

that's the benefit of the test setup used by madshrimps, it uses fans that would be considered quiet by the majority of users and that is what most people want today
Comment from Spanki @ 2007/05/10
Hey jmke,

First off, great job on the fan and heatsink reviews. Since you've had first-hand experience with them, I'm curious what your take is on why the CM Hyper Tx does so well, compared to say the Scythe Katana 2?

It looks like they both use a ~42 cfm fan / 3 heat-pipes and the Scythe appears to have more fins, which have more contact with each fin (oval slot, due to slanting vs round slot). I guess I was thinking that the Scyth would do better.

You think the difference is in the higher impedence of the Scythe? The way the heat-pipes are mounted at the base (the Tx seems better in that regard)?

I guess I'm just surprised at the Hyper Tx performance I'm seeing in reviews - a light-weight cooler, with push-pin mounting that out-performs all kinds of HSFs you wouldn't expect it to (maybe a bit loud at full load? but that's ok when there's a lot of gunfire and explosions going off ).
Comment from Spanki @ 2007/05/10
Quote:
Originally Posted by jmke View Post
Coolermaster has another new Tower heatsink coming with 120mm support which will maybe challenge the Ninja and others alike
Oooh... do tell! . Show us a pic - we won't tell.
Comment from jmke @ 2007/05/10
Quote:
Originally Posted by Spanki View Post
I guess I'm just surprised at the Hyper Tx performance I'm seeing in reviews - a light-weight cooler, with push-pin mounting that out-performs all kinds of HSFs you wouldn't expect it to .
like the Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 (Pro) did then? can't put my finger on the exact reason why they do so good, but combination of custom fan which sends airflow over every part of the heatsink with help of a shroud at the top to further help cool things down certainly seems to off.

The new coolermaster 2*12 we saw at Cebit



more pics here: http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=get...&articID=5 50
Comment from Rutar @ 2007/05/10
Are those 38mm fans for more pressure?
Comment from Spanki @ 2007/05/10
Thanks, I must have missed that Cebit coverage before - I wish they'd moved to 8mm pipes on the Tx 2/3.

BTW, any chance of adding a Enzotech Ultra-X to your review lineup?

How about getting a preview sample of the Thermalright Ultima 90?

 

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