by Doors4ever
04/26/2006 | 09:44 PM
High-efficiency cooling systems have developed as a reaction to the continuous growth of heat dissipation of modern processors. The word “super-cooler” has now become a kind of a technical term to denote a cooling system capable of handling any reasonable load without producing much noise.
<%BANNER[article]%>This success has largely been due to the development of heat pipes technology none of today’s super-coolers can get along without. On the opposite side of the market there are ordinary, entry-level coolers such as are included with a CPU or shipped in a ready-made computer. The purpose of such coolers is to ensure a more or less stable operation of the CPU and they can do so with no pretension to anything more.
It would be long and useless arguing which super-cooler is better than others in terms of efficiency, quietness, price/performance ratio, but as a matter of fact, there’s little difference between them. Super-coolers are all good and it’s even a somewhat boring job to test them. Checking entry-level coolers is of no use, either, as they are all similar and you can’t wait for any surprises from them. Yet purchasing a super-cooler doesn’t always make sense. Sometimes you may be better off spending the extra $50-60 for a more powerful processor or graphics card instead. And you shouldn’t find yourself limited to a cheap/bad cooler or without overclocking opportunities as there’s a whole class of midrange products with a decent performance. They are not “super” but are quite capable of coping with a modern processor. And they have acquired heat pipes, too!
Today I am going to test seven coolers for AMD and Intel processors: Cooler Master Hyper L3, Cooler Master Susurro, Spire VertiCool II, Spire DiamondCool II, Scythe Katana Cu, Scythe Katana 775 and Scythe Samurai Z. I will compare them each against the rest and also with a Tuniq Tower 120 super-cooler. You’ll see which of these products is better and what you are going to lose if you don’t buy an expensive super-cooler.
There are universal (for several processor types) and specialized (either for Intel or for AMD CPUs) cooler models in this review. This made me use two test platforms.
Socket 775 | Socket 939 | |
Processor | Intel Pentium 4 521 (2.8 GHz) | AMD Athlon X2 64 3800+ (2.0 GHz) |
Mainboard | Asus P5WD2 Premium, BIOS 0606 | Abit Fatal1ty AN8 SLI, BIOS 20 |
Memory | Corsair TWIN2X1024-8000UL | Corsair TWIN1024-4400C25 |
Thermal paste | Zalman | |
PSU | SilverStone Zeus ST65ZF (650W) | |
The platforms were placed in a thermal chamber with a constant temperature of 30°C. The processors were heated up by the S&M utility at 100% load. The CPU temperature was controlled via SpeedFan; the RM Clock Utility was used to make sure there was no thermal throttling. The coolers were all tested at the maximum fan speed.
The Tuniq Tower 120 cooler was included for the comparison’s sake as a reference product (for more details about this cooler check out our review called Tuniq Tower 120 Cooler Review: All Super Coolers are Great, but Some Are Greater Than the Others). It has got its title of a super-cooler by coping with an Intel Pentium 4 521 overclocked to 4.13GHz at 1.375V voltage and with an AMD Athlon X2 64 3800+ overclocked to 2.8GHz at 1.45V voltage. Unfortunately, none of the coolers included in this review can do anything like that. So how will we compare them? This time I’m going to take frequency as the parameter to base our comparison upon. The higher the frequency the tested cooler allows overclocking a processor to, the better the cooler is. The frequency being the same, other factors should be considered, like temperature, noise, ease of installation, etc.
The technical characteristics of the coolers are taken from the manufacturers’ websites with differences specifically mentioned where necessary.
And I’m going to begin with the Spire coolers.
The coolers from Spire come in standard packages that only differ in size and the model name on the sticker.
The Spire VertiCool II is a universal cooler for both Intel’s LGA775 and AMD’s processors.
Specification | Spire SP601B3 VertiCool II |
Socket | Socket 754 / 940 / 775 / 939 |
Compatibility | Any contemporary processors from Intel and AMD |
Heatsink dimensions | 95 x 65 x 100 mm (L x W x H) |
Detailed description | Blue transparent fan (glows in UV light) |
Fan | 80 x 25 mm |
Fan rotation speed | 2300 RPM +/-10% |
MTBF | 50 000 h |
Bearings | Frictionless bearing |
Current | 0.13 A |
Power | 1.56 W |
Air flow | 25.78 CFM |
Noise | 19 dBA |
Thermal resistance | 0.21 (AMD) and 0.23 (INTEL) o C/W |
The cooler represents the typical tower-like design:
Two heat pipes take heat off the copper base:
The base is superbly polished:
The cooler comes with an LGA755 fastener already attached so you only have to screw it to the back-plate, but you also get everything necessary to use the cooler with an AMD K8 processor (another back-plate and fastener).
The Spire VertiCool II kept our Intel Pentium 4 521 processor running until a FSB frequency of 280MHz. The resulting CPU frequency was 3.93MHz. The CPU temperature was fluctuating from 67.5 to 70°C which is a very good result; the fan speed was about 2200rpm.
I must confess I had troubles trying to switch to another platform. It should have been easy as you are only supposed to replace the fastener by undoing one small screw.
I removed the LGA775 fastener all right, but had a hard time trying to install the other one. The screw-hole is right in the middle, making you reach for it with your screwdriver from a side, and the screw would go in at a wrong angle and get stuck. I think it would be easier for the user to deal with two screws.
As soon as I overcame that difficulty, there arose another one:
As you see, the fan is right above the screw head and you have to remove the fan to tighten the screw. So, I eventually installed the Spire VertiCool II on an AMD processor, but that was a real trouble indeed.
The Spire VertiCool II did well on our AMD Athlon X2 64 3800+, too. It allowed me to overclock the CPU to 2.7GHz at 1.4V voltage. The CPU temperature was fluctuating within a range of 61-63°C.
This cooler is meant exclusively for AMD processors, so I had no installation-related problems with it.
Specification | Spire SP 741B3 DiamondCool II |
Socket | Socket 754 / 940 / 939 |
Compatibility | Any contemporary AMD processors |
Heatsink dimensions | 89 x 80 x 53 mm (L x W x H) |
Detailed description | Blue transparent fan (glows in UV light) |
Fan | 80 x 25 mm |
Fan rotation speed | 2400 RPM +/-10% |
MTBF | 50 000 h |
Bearings | Frictionless bearing |
Current | 0.2 A |
Power | 2.4 W |
Air flow | 41.15 CFM |
Noise | 21 dBA |
Thermal resistance | 0.285o C/W |
I should confess the specs are not very precise because they belong to the SP741B3 model (its characteristics are listed on the manufacturer’s website) while we’ve got a sample of the SP741B3-U model for our tests. The fan was rotating at about 2100rpm as reported by the mainboard’s monitoring tools instead of the expected 2400rpm. The noise, performance and other characteristics may be different, too.
There are now four heat pipes taking heat away from the cooler’s base.
A large fan tops the whole arrangement.
It’s the first time I see a cooler’s base that thick!
The manufacturer says it’s an advantage, but I’m not so enthusiastic about that. The purpose of the base is to make the heatsink robust, so it must have a certain thickness. Heat is to be transferred to the heatsink’s plates to be distributed in as large an area as possible, and this calls for a rather thick base, too. But in this case the heat from the processor is transferred to the plates not only directly from the base but also via as many as four heat pipes. In such a thick base there is a big difference between the temperatures of the bottom and top surfaces, and the pipes that have contact with the top surface do not work as efficiently as they could if they were placed closer to the processor core. Do not forget that the thickness of the processor’s heat-spreading plate adds up to the thickness of the cooler’s base!
How the base is finished is important, too, and the base of the Spire DiamondCool II lacks any polish at all.
As a result, the Spire DiamondCool II could only help overclock the AMD Athlon X2 64 3800+ processor to 2.6GHz, and the CPU temperature rose to an alarming 73°C.
Besides serving as a container, the package is also informative. It explains you how the cooler works and what characteristics it has.
Specification | CoolerMaster Susurro (RR-KCT-T9E) |
Socket | Socket 754, 939, 940 and M2 |
Compatibility | AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ and up |
Heatsink dimensions | 77 x 92 x 40 mm (L x W x H) |
Heatsink material | Pure copper (99.97%) |
Fan | 92 x 25 mm (compatible with 80mm) |
Fan rotation speed | 800~2800 RPM (managed by thermal diode) |
MTBF | 50 000 h |
Bearings | Rifle bearing |
Noise | 16 dBA (min) |
Heatsink weight | 685g (without fan) |
Fan weight | 75g |
This is the single cooler in this review that lacks heat pipes, yet it has trumps of its own.
First, it is all made of copper. Second, it is small. And third, it is very quiet. A thermal sensor controls the speed of the fan.
The cooler’s base isn’t polished at all, though:
And the sensor resides in a very improper location – in the middle of the heatsink. Placed like that, it will sooner react to a heat dissipation growth of the graphics card rather than of the central processor.
To tell you the truth, I had expected the Cooler Master Susurro to get the last place in the end, but it helped overclock the CPU to 2.7GHz at 1.4V, and the CPU temperature was 69°C. This is not low, of course, but better than the result of the previous model. This is to show you that heat pipes are important, but also require a competent overall design of the cooler. The speed of the fan rose from 800rpm in idle mode to 2200rpm which is far from the specified maximum of 2800rpm. So, the result of the Susurro might have been even better if the sensor were located properly.
This cooler comes in a transparent plastic box with paper inserts that have a lot of information for you to read.
Specification | CoolerMaster Hyper L3 (RR-LCH-P9E1) |
Socket | Socket LGA 775 |
Compatibility | Intel Pentium D 3.4GHz |
Heatsink dimensions | 90 x 112 x 41 mm (L x W x H) |
Heatsink material | Copper sole with nickel plating |
Fan | 92 x 25 mm (compatible with 80mm) |
Fan rotation speed | 1100~2800 RPM ±10% (managed by mainboard) |
Air flow | 49.56CFM |
Air pressure | 3.31mmH2O (max) |
MTBF | 50 000 h |
Bearings | UFO bearing |
Voltage rating | 12V |
Current | 0.22A (max) |
Power | 2.64W (max) |
Noise | 18 dBA (min) |
Heatsink weight | 333g (with retention) |
Fan weight | 90g |
The cooler looks like is made of aluminum, but the manufacturer says the base is copper coated with a layer of nickel.
Three copper heat pipes help in the heat transfer.
The max specified fan speed is 2800rpm, but SpeedFan reported a speed of 3000rpm. So this is the fastest fan among the coolers I’m testing in this review.
There’s a high-efficiency (as the manufacturer claims) thermal interface of the Cooler Master PTK series on the base, but I removed it after my first unsuccessful attempt at overclocking and then tested the cooler with Zalman’s thermal paste, the same as I used with the rest of the coolers. The cooler’s base lacks any polish.
The results of the Cooler Master Hyper L3 were somewhat disappointing. It managed to overclock the Intel Pentium 4 512 only to 275MHz FSB while the CPU temperature rose to 70°C.
This is a simplified LGA775-only version of the Katana cooler from Scythe.
The package is very informative – you can learn almost everything about the product by reading the text on the box.
Specifications | Scythe Katana 775 SCKTN-775 |
Socket | Socket 775 |
Dimensions | 98 x 96 x 138 mm |
Fan | 92 x 25 mm |
Fan rotation speed | 500 ~ 2.500RPM ±10% (managed by mainboard) |
Air flow | 23.92 ~ 50.31 CFM |
Noise | 15.00 ~ 31.65 dBA |
Weight | 315 g |
You can identify the cooler by the characteristic tilt relative to the mainboard’s plane.
Coolers of the “tower” design have a lot of strong points, but they do have one obvious drawback – they do not cool the PCB near the CPU socket. Meanwhile, the MOSFETs there can get as hot as 80-100°C or more when the CPU is under load. Some cooler manufacturers just ignore this problem, but Scythe found a smart solution – they simply positioned the cooler with a tilt.
The base is not very thick and is superbly polished:
The installation procedure gave me some apprehensions: the capacitors were right under the cooler’s fastening plate, but the pressure seemed to be strong.
The Scythe Katana 775 could overclock the Intel Pentium 4 512 to 280MHz FSB frequency and the CPU temperature was 71°C at that.
The Scythe Katana Cu is an enhanced version of the ordinary Scythe Katana. It is an all-copper cooler.
There’s a lot of information on the box while the color scheme stresses the transition to copper.
Specifications | Scythe Katana Cu SCKTN- CU1000 |
Socket | Socket 370 / 775/ 478 / 462 / 754 / 940 / 939 |
Dimensions | 98 x 96 x 130 mm (L x W x H) |
Fan | 92 x 25 mm |
Fan rotation speed | 1200 ~ 2.500RPM ±10% |
Air flow | 23.92 ~ 50.31 CFM |
Noise | 15.00 ~ 31.65 dBA |
Weight | 590 g |
The copper modification of the Scythe Katana has a higher fan speed at 2500rpm and features a speed controller.
The cooler is universal, i.e. it supports even the legacy Socket 370 and Socket platforms, and you can orient it in any way on the mainboard, but this flexibility comes at a cost. You are going to have some troubles installing this cooler.
The retentions are installed in the following snapshots for shooting convenience:
The base has excellent polishing quality:
Since the cooler design has remained the same, but the heatsink material has been replaced with a more efficient one, you can expect some performance growth. The Scythe Katana Cu didn’t disappoint me, overclocking the Intel Pentium 4 512 to 285MHz FSB and keeping the CPU temperature as low as 63°C. Like with the other coolers, the clock-gen frequency could be lifted to the same 270MHz on the AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ platform, but none of the other coolers could keep the CPU temperature below 60°C while the Katana Cu kept it at 59°C!
A very interesting member of the Scythe cooler family comes next. I’m not wasting my time on the package as there are more exciting things to talk about.
Specifications | Scythe Samurai Z SCSMZ-1000 |
Socket | Socket 775/ 478 / 754 / 940 / 939 |
Dimensions | 98 x 85 x 128 mm (L x W x H) |
Fan | 92 x 25 mm |
Bearings | Slide bearing |
Fan rotation speed | 2,000RPM |
Air flow | 32.4 CFM |
Noise | 23.5 dBA |
Weight | 360 g |
So, this cooler uses heat pipes but its design differs from the typical “tower”. This helped avoid the characteristic drawbacks of the tower design and make the cooler smaller.
There’s a rather large aluminum heatsink in the base. Two curved heat pipes transfer heat from the base to the thin aluminum plates at the top.
The copper base was covered with protective film, yet it didn’t help against oxidation:
It’s not easy to see in the snapshot, but there are traces of soldering near the pipes which indicates how careful the manufacturer is about a proper thermal contact.
The most pleasant surprise is the new patent-pending tool-free system of fastening the cooler on different processor types (Versatile Tool-Free Multiplatform System –VTMS).
The fasteners for LGA775, AMD K8 and Socket 478 processors, respectively, are shown in the photo (from left to right). Take note of the curious locks on each pair of fasteners. These locks are inserted into the holes in the aluminum heatsink’s sides. They are marked with an arrow below (the LGA775 fastener was installed to make this snapshot):
Replacing the fastener with another one takes just a few seconds: press on the small levers to release the pressure and take the fastener out. Installing the cooler on different socket types is no problem at all. This is a real pleasure after the other universal coolers from Scythe that gave you some troubles during installation.
Well, some troubles occurred even with the new fastener:
Unfortunately, the Scythe Samurai Z didn’t impress me with its efficiency in the tests. It helped overclock the Intel Pentium 4 521 processor to 280MHz FSB (the CPU temperature grew to 73°C at that) and the AMD Athlon X2 64 3800+ to 270MHz clock-gen frequency (the CPU temperature was 65°C).
The results of the tests are presented in the next diagram in the order of ascending performance:
The three leaders are the same for both Intel’s and AMD’s processors. The first place is always occupied by the super-cooler Tuniq Tower 120. Note that it kept the CPU temperature the lowest despite the higher CPU clock rate and voltage. But this cooler performed just for the sake of comparison, so let’s better discuss the other coolers’ results.
The Scythe Katana Cu takes the second place. It is not much worse than the leader and its highest efficiency is beyond any doubt. Also important is that it is a very universal cooler – it supports all modern processors and even a couple of legacy platforms. The fasteners allow orienting the cooler in any direction depending on the orientation of the CPU socket on the mainboard. Unfortunately, this advantage is somewhat spoiled by the not very easy installation procedure.
The Spire VertiCool II leaves an ambiguous impression. Its efficiency is beyond doubt as confirmed by its third place among the CPU overclocking results. Unfortunately, this cooler can only be recommended for Intel processors – and it comes with the appropriate fastener preinstalled. Its compatibility with AMD’s processors is deficient – it’s hard to replace the fastener and to install the cooler. Well, I don’t think it’s a big problem for the manufacturer to improve the fasteners after all.
So these are the top three, but it doesn’t mean the others are downright bad. Take the Scythe Katana 775, for example. It is a simplified version of the ordinary Scythe Katana, but with some improvements. The universal fastening system had given cause to complaints so they just produced a specialized LGA775 cooler since such processors are very popular today. The cooler’s efficiency is the same, but the installation goes much easier and the cooler is cheaper, too.
The Cooler Master Susurro is the quietest among the tested coolers all of which are rather quiet by themselves. It won’t suit for overclockers, but is an ideal solution for entry-level or midrange computers due to its small size. If Cooler Master finds a way to place the thermal sensor closer to the processor core, the cooler will become even more valuable.
The Scythe Samurai Z deserves a special word. I’d compare the Japan-headquartered Scythe to the Korea-based Zalman. Both the companies are worthy of respect as they are constantly experimenting and finding their own way rather than copying others’ solutions. And here, the innovative VTMS fastening system from Scythe is a very, very interesting solution. This system may look well on a super-cooler like Scythe Ninja, and such a model does exist! It is called Scythe Mine and uses a traditional tower-like design. The fan is in the center of the cooler and you can use any fan with a thickness of 25mm and a diameter of 60mm to 140mm! We have already received this model, so very soon you will be able to read more about it on our site.
All in all, I cannot praise only two outsiders, Spire DiamondCool II and Cooler Master Hyper L3.
Summarizing the results of this test session I can say that modern midrange coolers are not so far behind the so-called super-coolers even though there is a definite difference between these two categories. However, you can prefer an ordinary cooler like the ones you’ve just seen in this review without fear of a catastrophic performance hit. It’s hard to name an obviously best model among them because there’s a lot of things to see to as you’re choosing your cooler like noise parameters, ease of installation, availability, and price, which may vary a lot in different regions. So, just check with your local shop and see what they can offer you.