Socket-A Heat Sink Comparison

Date Reviewed: November 6, 2001
Reviewed By: Jason Rabel
Companies: Thermaltake, Thermal Integration, Millennium Thermal, Fortis Technologies, VantecUSA, Dynatron, Swiftech

Thermaltake Volcano 7:

Thermaltake has been very successful with its Volcano line of heat sinks. The first volcano was considered a "budget" heat sink, but as time progressed they have become just as popular and perform as well as the orb line of heat sinks. This massive Volcano 7 uses mostly aluminum with a very thick copper core embedded in the center of the base. The clip does require the use of a screwdriver, however it does fit in a nice notch in the clip so you don't have to worry about your screwdriver slipping out and gashing something. I found it very easy to put on and take off, and I just used a small screwdriver with very little effort. This heat sink is very big, and it has to be to fit an 80mm fan! Which brings us to this very unique feature is that the fan is variable speed, which increases RPM as the temperature increases. This helps keep the fan quieter when the system is idling, yet gives you more cooling when you are using CPU intensive programs. Like I said before, the fan RPM increases with the ambient temperature next to the heat sink, here is the specs from the box:

• 2900RPM @ 25°C (77°F) / 46CFM

• 5000RPM @ 35°C (95°F) / 53CFM

During testing the fan never did reach 5000RPM because testing is done in an open environment. The highest it reached was about 3800RPM, so there was still some more cooling capacity to spare!

Inside the retail box you get the Volcano 7, a 3-4pin adapter, along with the 3pin lead used for RPM sensing. There is also a little aluminum badge with an adhesive backing, it says, "Performance Cooled By Thermaltake". It is very professional looking and I even put it on my case. The base of the heat sink has a protective sticker on it, which not only protect the base from oxidizing, it also protect the TIM that has been pre-applied. The TIM is a one time use, and it came off very easy after initial testing. It should be noted again that testing with the TIM on the Volcano 7 vs. testing with Arctic Silver II yielded only about half a degree difference (numbers listed in the results was with the ASII).

(Click on any image to get a closeup of the whole row)

(Click on any image to get a closeup of the whole row)

Previous Heat Sinks:

The other heat sinks used in this test came from previous heat sink comparisons, check out the reviews page to read more about them. However here are some pictures of each heat sink to refresh your memory:

• Vantec CCK-6035D:

(click on image for close-up)

• Vantec CCK-6027D:

 
(click on image for close-up)

• Dynatron DY1206BH-638:

(click on image for close-up)

• Swiftech MCX-370:

(click on image for close-up)

• Thermsonic Thermoengine:

(click on image for close-up) 

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