X-bit labs

Four CPU Coolers from Thermaltake Tested (page 13)

Category: Coolers

by Vasily Melnik

[ 09/05/2005 | 10:40 AM ]

The heatsink itself is made of copper and is equipped with four heat pipes:

This is a classic design, although the purpose of the heat pipes is not so evident. The heatsink is a single whole anyway, so they only facilitate heat transfer from the heatsink sole to the top of the ribbing. The sole is not ideally finished, just like the ones of the other tested coolers:

As I said above, modern processors with heat-spreading caps don’t actually require the base of the cooler to be ideally flat. But considering the small size and low cost of this cooler, it may become popular among Socket A users for whom the quality of the sole is quite important. On the other hand, users who are not satisfied with the stock cooler won’t think it a big deal to finish the base of the PIPE101 with their own hands.

To perform my tests I put a 92mm fan from Thermaltake on this cooler. The fan has a rotational speed of 1800rpm.

In theory, a faster fan would affect the performance positively, but the noise from the cooler is quite audible even at 1800rpm and I didn’t want to create another noise-generator in the computer.