Thermaltake Blue Orb:
(aka "BLORB")

Date Reviewed: October 15, 2000
Reviewed By: Jason Rabel
Company: Thermaltake
Company URL: http://www.thermaltake.com
Cost: $12.99 USD (at Plycon)

How It Fits:

The top picture is the Blue Orb on a Visiontek GF2MX, the black tape is holding down a temp probe that is touching the core. The second picture is the Blue Orb mounted on a Guillemot 3D Prophet DDR-DVI, and the ramsinks are part of the VIce III Xtreme (From Millisec) that I had on it before. 

Temperature Comparison:

Just testing the Blue Orb by itself wouldn't really be a good review, that's why this review came out a little later than some of the others. I tested the Blue Orb on the two video cards above (GF2MX & GF1DDR), as well as comparing it to the Tennmax Lasagna BGA cooler (which is very small and doesn't block the PCI slot adjacent to the AGP slot) along with the VIce III Xtreme cooler from Millisec which blocks the PCI slot, and almost a second one. The advantage of the Tennmax is it's little size, the disadvantage is doesn't cool the video card as much. The advantage of the VIce III Xtreme is it's larger size yields superior cooling performance, the disadvantage is it is kinda noisy when compared to the other two. All temps were taken with the temperature probe touching the core on the front side. A temp probe on the back side didn't yield as predictable results and it wasn't linear with the front temp, so I didn't include it in the data. The ambient temperature was about 78 F. (We use Fahrenheit here in the US, so learn to like it!)

Conclusion:

The Blue Orb has honestly gained my respect. While it isn't the biggest baddest cooler that you can buy, the combination of size, quietness, price, good looks, ease of installation, cooling ability, etc, put this cooler in a niche of it's own. This cooler was mainly targeted towards the newer video cards and motherboards, and not the nuclear bomb blast heat equivalent of the GF1 chip. I really like the Blue Orb because it is extremely quiet, and they package it as a "complete" kit, including essentials like some thermal compound, a thermal pad, and even the 3-4pin adapter. They have covered any application you can think of, without a person having to buy additional stuff. Sure, Thermaltake could of made this thing bigger and louder, but then people would start having problems getting it to fit in certain locations and other people would complain of the noise (Delta 38CFM fan's ring a bell?)... 

Pro's:
 Extremely quiet
 Good performance / size combination
 Reasonable price ($12.99 USD)
 Cool blue color
 Includes adapter, compound, and pad!

Con's:
 Blocks a PCI slot (most aftermarket video coolers do though)
 Might have to make little modifications for it to fit right

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