August '02 Socket-A Heat Sink Comparison

Date Reviewed: August 04, 2002
Reviewed By: Jason Rabel
Companies: Thermaltake, Heatsink Factory, Xtreme Tek Werkz, A.O.C. USA, Dynatron

Setup & Testing:

To test the heatsinks I used a volt-modded ABIT KT7A-RAID with a 1.4GHz Athlon (TBird). The board was placed on a workbench to run the tests so I could control the ambient temperature (which would be impossible inside a PC case). The tests were run at two speeds:

• 1,400 MHz @ 1.73v (MBM reported 1.76v)

• 1,600 MHz @ 2.04v (MBM reported 2.07v)

Two temp readings were taken, one was with the onboard temp probe, and the other was with a temp probe that I glued to the bottom of the CPU. The reason for two readings is that the motherboard probe is known for not always being accurate, and the probe I affixed is placed DIRECTLY under the CPU core. You can see the spot of arctic silver where the motherboard probe touches, which is quite off-center.

Wpcredit was used to enable the HLT command for true CPU idling. Once the system booted up it would sit idle until the temp stopped changing. Then to put it under load I used Prime95 and ran it until the temp again stabilized (or system crashed, in some cases). Generally once it starts running the 8K FFT tests the temperature will peak.

Results:

The ambient temperature was kept at 24.5°C +/- 1°C.

I was going to post up idle temps, but they all were very close, they all ranged from 25°C - 27°C @ 1.4GHz and 30°C - 33°C @ 1.6GHz. Also at 1.6GHz, the processor is stable up to about 75°C, so when you don't see a temp that means it exceed that temp and windows crashed. Lastly, the H2T was too big to fit on the board so obviously it couldn't be included in the tests.

Load Temps:

Conclusion:

Some of the results I was expecting, but others came as a complete surprise. First, the Volcano 9 was a few degrees higher than the Volcano 7+, which is somewhat expected as the Volcano 7+ is all copper and costs about $10 more. The two all-aluminum AOC heatsinks crashed under 1.6GHz @ 2.04v, which didn't surprise me. However the all-copper AOC heatsink did pretty good considering the competition, perhaps with a bigger fan the temperature could be dropped a couple more degrees. Some of the Coolink heatsinks were really surprising, they are all monster size (however that doesn't always mean good performance), and at 1.4GHz they can certainly cool, however at 1.6GHz you can start to see how much of a difference the higher CFM fans start to make. The Dynatron which probably the smallest cooler out of the lot certainly held it's own, considering it only has a single 60mm fan. I was expecting the Alpha to dominate the group, however at 1.4GHz that was not the case, but at 1.6GHz the Alpha really started to shine showing itself as the clear leader when it comes to high heat.

Also, you can see how the board's less-direct readings really differed from the probe that was glued directly under the CPU core. In some cases temperatures differed by as much as 10°C!

A big thanks to Thermaltake, Heatsink Factory, Xtreme Tek Werkz, A.O.C. USA, and Dynatron for supplying the heatsinks used in this review.

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