Date:
Thursday , October 15, 2009
Author:
Marc Adams
Editor:
Kyle Bennett
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Intel Core i7 Cooler Review

New CPU coolers from Kingwin, Thermal Transtech International, and ZALMAN. While air cooling has gotten about as good as it can possibly get, all of these coolers bring something unique to the table. But do these units perform? We find out.

Introduction

Today we are going to look at some heat sinks from lesser known manufacturers; Kingwin and Thermal Transtech International Corporation. For good measure we include ZALMAN’s new cooler the CNPS9900 LED. In the race to produce the most efficient design each sample today brings something different to the table. We have the orbital design from ZALMAN, a folded fin design from Kingwin to help cooler those hot CPU power phases, and something called a thermal column from TTIC which you have to see to believe. Which one performs best? Which one offers the quietest cooling solution? Finally, which one offers you the best value for your dollar?

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System Setup

All testing of the coolers will occur on our brand new test bed. Consisting of the GIGABYTE X58-Extreme motherboard, six gigabytes of Corsair DDR3 RAM and paired with the Intel Core i7 920. With four cores and a total of eight threads expect to see lots of heat. The video card of choice is the NVIDIA 9500 GT thanks to its low heat output and silent fan.

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Test Methods

CPU

In keeping with the spirit of the [H] we are once again doing hardware testing of all heat sinks. This means milling a very small path into an expensive CPU to place our thermocouple. This is by far the best way to test coolers and the only way here at the [H].

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Temperatures for the CPU will continue to be measured using our Sperry Digital 4 Point thermometer.

GPU

For this article the GPU will be kept at stock speed to keep any excess heat away from the CPU that could impact the results. In 2D mode the 9500 GT generates very little heat and to further isolate it from the rest of the system we will install it in the secondary PCIE slot.

Thermal Paste

Noctua's NT-H1 thermal paste was selected as the paste of choice for a few key reasons. Firstly, the thermal paste has been shown to provide excellent thermal conductivity allowing the heat sinks to better do their job. Secondly, there is no observed curing time. That is, performance does not get any better over time. Any curing time could have introduced variables into the equation causing at best dubious results and at worst unreliable ones. Lastly, because we have a special CPU on our hands it requires a compound that is more viscous so not to seep into the channel and run off.

Temperatures

Ambient temperature will be kept at 25C for the duration of the tests and measured with a MicroTemp EXP non-contact infrared thermometer and cross referenced with the Sperry Digital 4 Point thermometer. Any variance greater then 0.2C will halt the testing until temperatures return within spec for fifteen minutes.

Idle

Idle temperatures will be recorded after a fifteen minute period of inactivity. Any fluctuation during the last sixty seconds will reset the timer for an additional five minutes.

Load

Load temperatures will be recorded after a fifteen minute period of 100% load. To obtain this load we will be using Prime95 v25.3 set to blend mode. In this way we can heat up the CPU as well as the memory controller which is now integrated into the die. Any fluctuation during the last sixty seconds will reset the timer for an additional five minutes.

Sound

Sound levels will be measured with a Reliability Direct AR824 sound meter from a distance of four feet away. With everything turned off and the room completely silent the meter registered a sound level of 38dB(A). This is a very quiet room where a simple pin drop could be heard. All sound measurements are recorded in the very late evening to further reduce any ambient noise.