Introduction

Aerocool makes cool products! When you take a look at their website you can see a variety of products, but most of them have a special touch. For a company that exists only 5 years, they have already achieved a lot.



Product differentiation, to stand out. ITC Multimedia sent us the Aerocool HT-102 CPU which also seems to follow this strategy.

This cooler comes in a High Quality packaging. That's the first thing that caught my attention.


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Fan specifications

4x UV LEDs

Dimension: 92x92x25mm

Air Flow: 37.00 CFM

Speed: 1,800 RPM

Noise: 20.62 dBA

Heatsink specifications

Tube: Dia. 8mm x 3

Fin: 132(H)x105(L)x58(W)mm

Total 35 Copper fins

Cooler Weight 680g

AMD: Athlon XP 3600+ and higher , Athlon 64 / Intel: P4 socket 478 3.8Ghz and higher, LGA 775

Complete information can be found on the manufacturers' web site.

With a nice variety of clips, screws etc. this cooler can be installed on every common used socket.


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The three heatpipes and the 35 copper fins make this cooler quit heavy. Besides that the heatsink is compact and feels massive.



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To install the cooler no mainboard removal is required… although I would recommend doing that. Installing the heatsink isn't very difficult. Just choose the right clips and place them into the correct position, and secure the heatsink.

Now to get the fan on the heatsink, that’s a bit trickier. You can't install the heatsink on the mainboard inside a case and then screw the fan on it. There just isn't enough room to use a screwdriver for the lowers two screws.

Attaching the fan onto the heatsink before installing the heatsink is a great idea. But sadly is not possible. The fan is positioned over the mounting bracket. So you can't do that either. So you're indirectly forced to remove the mainboard out of your case and do the installation there.


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And blue LEDs are a must have nowadays...


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Let’s see how it performs ->

Test setup & Methodology :

Piotke's Test Setup
CPU	AMD sempron 2600+
Cooling	Aerocool HT-102 Scythe Shogun Asetek Vapochill Micro Ultra Low Noise Thermalright XP-90C
Mainboard	Albatron K8 Ultra-U Pro
VGA	Albatron MX480
Memory	2*512 Mb A-Data Vitesta DDR600
PSU	Antec TrueControl 550 Watt

Of course, I don't use my system on default clock speeds. I added an extra 400 MHz to the cpu:



The Sempron 2600+ @ 2000 Mhz and 1.6 vcore is putting out close to 100 Watt according to this online calculator.

All results were taken with room temperature at ~22°C. Due to room temp fluctuations, different mounting and user error can account up to 1-2°C of inaccuracy from obtained results. Please keep this in mind when looking at the results. Each heatsink was tested repeatedly; if I got questionable results the test was restarted.

Setup was installed in a case less environment

Noise level of each fan was recorded with SmartSensor SL4001A. The sensor was placed ~65cm away from the HSF. The lowest dBA reading in the test room was ~32,5 dBA.

System was stressed by running K7 CPU Burn for 30min (after Thermal Compound’s burn-in); this application pushes the temperature higher then any other application or game we’ve yet encountered. Speedfan was used to log maximum obtained temperatures.

Arctic Silver kindly send us their “Lumière” thermal testing compound which has the same color as Ceramique, requiring a mere 30-minute of break-in time!


Pure Performance


When setting the fan at high speed the HT-102 is trailing the pack, so it’s not a high performance monster; turning the speed down of the fan looks promising as the Aerocool comes in 2nd after the XP-90C.

Balance Noise/Performance


The fan on the HT-102 is not too silent, the 20dBA rating the specifications state must have been taken at 5 meter distance I’m guessing. The low fan settings seems to be a winner though, the noise level drops a massive 10dBA (from loud to dead silent) and performance only suffers mildly (+3°C).

Let’s wrap things up ->

Conclusions

The Aerocool HT-102 CPU cooler performs good, but not outstanding. So what could be a reason to buy this cooler?...Silence!

Looking at the cooling performance alone really says nothing. There are much more parameters and variables to deal with before you judge a cooler. A factor of high importance is noise level, and that's where this cooler stands out.

The three heat pipes and all the fins make a solid cooler that performs on a decent but ultra silent level. Not satisfied with the performance? Simply switch the fan. This cooler uses a normal sized model, namely 90/92mm.

It’s priced at the €/$50 mark which does not make it a budget solution, there are quite a few alternatives available which perform similar/better than the HT-102, but at the end of the day, if you bought this Aerocool model, you can be happy about your purchase, knowing that’s it among the better ones out there.

PRO
Compact shaped/formed
Standard fan size (92 mm)
Silent heat sink fan combination


CON
Installation method could be better, motherboard removal required
Performance/Noise balance at High fan speed is not too good

I’d like to thank Aerocool and ITC Multimedia for allowing us to test the HT-102.

Questions/Comments: forum thread