We got another heatsink. We gave it to Nathan Davis, because he loves them so.
The installation manual isn't too clear, but thankfully the need for direction is minimal, as it is similar in concept to the original Inteldesigned Northwood HSF, but with one large lever instead of two. We had a minor problem with one of the retentions that refused to stay clipped on, flicking off as soon as the lever was tightened. The curved end that grips onto the mobo anchor point was not arched enough. The trusty pliers soon fixed that. Once fully functional, this was seriously one of the easiest heatsink retention clips we've ever used.
So, we slapped it onto Chernobyl, again at 80W in an ambient temp of 23°C. Unfortunately the fan uses ball-bearings and for 4200rpm it is uncomfortably loud. At max speed, it spat out 42°C - not a score to shrug off, but it is too noisy. Winding it down to around 3700rpm, where it is a more acceptable, quiet whoosh of air, it delivered 45°C. To cut the sound out totally, we dropped the fan to 2500rpm. This cooked up a sweltry 54°C. Bad idea.
Aside from a warmer CPU, the resistor on the fan speed controller heats up a wee bit when the potentiometer is dialled down. Heat dissipation is expected for the excess voltage dumped but the level of temperature it gives off in this area is disturbingly high.
Admittedly, it puts up a reasonable fight to remove the heat but this heavy HSF is no beater of the mighty Gigabyte 3D Cooler range. Regardless, it still performs well enough at midspeed. So long as it isn't running the hottest hardware, this would fit in a Home Theatre box.
Issue: 137 | June, 2012