The best value heatsink we’ve tested.
Aywun is a brand-new player in the Aussie heatsink market, having just been shipped into our fine country with a range of 'sinks - we nabbed the A1-V8 mainly based on the pricetag of 52 bucks. Indeed our first impressions of the heatsink were not huge, with a simple tower design, but what we found in testing was nothing short of impressive.
Four 8mm thick heatpipes are bent into a U shape to provide eight heat paths, but the coolest part of all these is that they form part of the base. They contact directly to the IHS of the CPU, sucking away the heat even faster than the elderly get through their pre-mushed dinner. There is a small aluminium block that keeps the heatpipes in place and also provides a little more contact.
A series of 56 aluminium fins are above the base, fitted onto the heatpipes without solder and shaped into a strange hybrid of an X with the curved part of a D. An included 120mm fan mounts on the flatter side of the heatsink, making nary a whisper at 48.2dBA idle and a roaring 68.2dBA at load. They've even included a little three-pin controller box to manually control fanspeed, so set it to what you like and leave it there. The unique shape of the fins means that air is channelled through and out both sides of the heatsink, cooling other bits around too.
Performance was incredibly good for such a cheap heatsink, passing our torture tests while overclocked even at the lowest fan-speed. It wasn't as good as the Cogage's delta torture result of 24 degrees, sitting at 30 degrees, but for a cheap solid heatsink it's very nice. Compatibility is even for every socket under the sun bar 478 - this truly is the best budget choice for any rig.
Issue: 133 | February, 2012