Xigmatek Thor’s Hammer S126384

Xigmatek send us their first enthusiast grade products last year, they specialize in Heatpipe-Direct-Technology, their HDT-S1283 proved that low cost and high performance is quite possible. That product featured 3 heatpipes, the Thor’s Hammer tested today is monster in comparison: 7 heat pipes in total (of which 3 with slightly smaller diameter).

Purpose and targets of becoming one of the worlds leaders in thermal PC Industry were set for Xigmatek Co. Ltd in 2005, the founding year! To ensure reaching this project aims, Xigmateks management followed up with hard work, experiences and customer friendly business style.
Honing one of the world’s most efficient manufacturing operations, Integration Presence in major economic regions, being tied up with most important strategic alliances between suppliers and academia and further majority investments in R&D are some of Xigmateks aggressive incensement strategies.
Combining the cream of product designers, R&D engineers and technical people (main team in Germany) Xigmatek is proud and full of confidence to offer excellent quality products and service to cover the customers requirements and demands.
Within the standard channels as the consumer market and the distributing electrical appliances, Xigmatek will keep on focusing on development and set up even new sales channels to comply ever-changing demands and requirements.
Several years of experiences company background in Thermal IT industry provides our customer the best, reliable, environmental and performing Thermal/Cooling Systems including excellent Service to fulfill global users and customers demands.

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Xigmatek Thor’s Hammer S126384

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Xigmatek Thor’s Hammer S126384
- Intel S775/S1366 /AMD AM2/939
- Heatsink : 820 gram
- ~$65

When Xigmatek first approached us for reviewing this heatsink they were quite secretive, promising something completely insane compared to their previous S1283 product. How right they were. The Thor’s Hammer is quite a work of engineering art and wouldn’t look out of place behind a glass panel in your living room. The attention to detail on this heatsink is quite high, going from the strangely cut aluminum fins, the dual layer of heat pipes, the fan mounting method and the overall nickel plated finish all over this heatsink. Simply put, it’s a sight to behold.

A total of four large heat pipes make up the heatpipe-direct-touch base, while an additional 3 slightly smaller heat pipes make up the second layer; these heat pipes go up into an immense array of aluminum fins; a very unique approach to increase total cooling capacity; Xigmatek rates this unit up to 200W.



Inside the package a detailed manual, mounting clips and motherboard back plate, also a small English key and a total of 8 rubber fan mounts, so you can mount up to two 120mm fans, as long as they have flanged frames.

The Thor takes up quite a bit of room over the CPU socket, installation is straight forward but requires some time, only 2 of the 4 mounting screws can be accessed with the screw driver, the remaining two you’ll need to screw on tight using the included English key. A small note on thermal compound appliance, a dot in the middle does not work correctly with HDT heatsinks, you’ll need to draw a few lines in the orientation of the heat pipes to ensure proper contact. In our testing the difference between “dot in the middle” vs “lines” method was ~2°C. So a very worthy “tweak” to maximize performance!



Time for the performance tests, we mounted three different fans on the Thor and put it up against the Ultra-120 eXtreme and their own HDT-S1283



With high CFM fans the differences become immensely small, the Thor’s Hammer is one of a small group of heatsinks we tested which was able to match the Ultra-120 Extreme with the Delta 3200rpm; With the Global NCB performance/noise is very respectable but not able to beat the more affordable HDT-S1283; this heatsink is meant for the ultra high end and it will take an overclocked Core i7 to really see the benefit of those extra heat pipes.

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In summary here are the strong/weak points of the Xigmatek Thor’s Hammer S126384:



+ Extreme Performance With high CFM fans
+ Good Performance/noise with mid-range CFM fans
+ Solid bolt-through mounting method
+ Mounting for 2x120mm fans

- Price