Introduction

Today we present you all the heatsink results we gathered in the last year, tested on our Athlon 64 setup, the complete list consists of 36 units which were compared to each other and the stock aluminum AMD heatsink.

Second part of the roundup consists of inaugurating our new Intel S775 test setup, we do this by re-testing the acclaimed Scythe Ninja and compare it to 6 newcomers.


37 Heatsinks Compared

These were the heatsinks tested on the Athlon 64 setup:



For those having trouble identifying the collection of copper/aluminum above we made this list, if you want more information about a particular heatsink please visit our HSF Overview.

AMD Stock Cooling

AMD 4 Heat pipe Stock cooling

Aerocool Dominator

Arctic Cooling Alpine 64

Arctic Cooling Freezer 64

Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro

Asus Silent Square

Asus X-Mars

Coolermaster Susurro

MACS Triumph TEC

Noctua NH-U 12

Noctua NH-U 9

Sharkoon Red Shock

Silverstone NT02

Silverstone NT06

Scythe Infinity

Scythe Katana CU

Scythe Mine

Scythe NCU-2000

Scythe Ninja

Scythe Samurai Z

Scythe Shogun

Spire DiamondCool II

Spire VertiCool II

Thermalright XP-90C

Thermalright XP-90

Thermalright XP-120

Thermalright HR-01

Thermalright SI-120

Thermalright Ultra-90

Thermalright Ultra-120

Thermaltake Big Typhoon

Thermaltake Mini Typhoon

Titan Tower TTC-NK32TZ

TTIC NPH

Tuniq Tower 120

Zalman CNPS9500CU


AMD Test Setup and Methodology

All heatsinks except one (MACS TEC) were tested with the case in the exact same environment, with ambient noise levels consistent. The MACS noise level was tested with higher ambient and at a different angle/distance. It can not be directly compared to the other results, and thus its noise levels will be left out the comparison chart on the next page.

Athlon 64 Setup
CPU	Athlon 64 3200+ @ 2400 @ 1.7v vcore
Mainboard	DFI NF3 Lanparty
Memory	1 * 256Mb PC3700 OCZ
Other	Antec Sonata II AcoustiFan DustPROOF 120mm @ 5v in the rear as outtake (mounted with soft-mounts) ATI R9000 Passive Cooling Silverstone EFN-300 300W Passive Cooled PSU Maxtor 120GB IDE HDD

in-take temperature was measured at 22°C for all tests, but temp fluctuations, different mounting and user error can account up to 1-3°C of inaccuracy in the obtained results. Please keep this in mind when looking at the results. Each heatsink was tested repeatedly; if we got questionable results the test was restarted.

Noise level of each HSF combo was recorded with SmartSensor SL4001A, the sensor was placed ~50cm away from the case. The lowest dBA reading in the test room was 32.5dBA with everything turned off! Noise produced with system running without HSF fan: 34dBA @ 50cm

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 colour as Ceramique, but only a break in time of 30min!

Arctic Silver's ArctiClean was used to clean off thermal paste of the CPU and heatsink between tests

Fans used for comparison

To eliminate as much variables in the tests we test each heatsink with a "reference" fan if it can be mounted.

Delta NFB0912L 92mm: 42CFM

Papst 120mm 4412 F/2GLL: 40CFM

CPU Speed and Noise Measurement

Since we’re only using an Athlon 3200+, it would be interesting to overclock the CPU so its maximum heat output increases and it can simulate a higher clocked Athlon 64.

We recently purchased a power meter similar to this. Doing a few basic measurements with the test system gave these results for full system wattage usage.

Athlon S754 3200+ @ 2200Mhz - 1.5v: idle: 67Watt / Load: 125Watt

Athlon S754 3200+ @ 2420Mhz - 1.7v: idle: 78Watt / Load: 165Watt

In the days of the Athlon XP an increase of 0.1v vcore would result in 4-6°C higher CPU temp, so without much surprise the temperature results in this roundup with the 1.7v Athlon 64 will be much higher.

Noise was recorded approx. 50cm away from the case at an angle, here's a (very bad) drawing of how the dBA meter was position opposite the case and the test-room.


Green box = Sonata II # White Dot = dBA meter

What was measured?

The CPU temperature was measured with SpeedFan and highest value recorded

PWM temperature through SpeedFan, this represent the area around the CPU socket, the power management caps which you see on a motherboard, they are there to make sure the power which is fed into the motherboard coming from the PSU is filtered and delivered the CPU and other components. Too high temperature will cause Vcore fluctuations which in turn causes system instability.

Onto the test results for the Athlon 64 Setup ->

Athlon 64 Results - Heatsinks with Standard Fan

Our first results chart has the heatsinks paired with their retail fan at high speed, and at low speed if the system remained stable. The chart is split up in "noisier" >40dBA and "very quiet" <40dba parts.



If you’re after extreme air cooling and you don’t mind noise, then any product tested here will be great when paired with a very high speed fan like the 92mm Vantec Tornado we used on with the Thermalright XP-90C. Compared to the results with the low noise 92mm fan CPU temps drop 12°C;

If you don’t mind a little bit of noise, but don’t want to go all out, there are several out of the box solutions which allow you to fine tune the performance/noise balance, the Tuniq Tower 120, Scythe Katana CU and Zalman CNPS9700CU come with fan controllers which allow you to switch between high performance and silence.

If extremely silent computing is your goal you’ll be happy to see lots of products keeping the CPU below critical levels at low noise. Coolers like the Scythe Mine and Asus Silent Square come with their own fan and even at full speed they are quite silent and perform admirably. If you want to pair your heatsink with another fan, the big tower coolers make for a popular choice, Scythe Ninja/Infinity/Shogun and Noctua NHU-12 pack quite a punch.

Let’s see how they do when we use the same fan on those heatsinks which can fit them, this will level the playing field noise wise ->

AMD Athlon 64 Results - Heatsinks with Similar Fan:

Our second result chart for the Athlon 64 heatsinks contains results when each unit was paired with one of our "reference" fans, either 120mm Papst or 92mm Delta if they could be mounted. There were quite a number of products which use a custom designed fan/mounting systems, the results for those HSF are re-included for comparison.



The top 8 heatsinks using the 120mm Papst fan are only 5°C apart, which makes it difficult for you to go wrong with any single one. If we must name “one” product to be superior to the others, than the Tuniq would be the one, if you fit it. It’s a brute force solution, close to 1kg of tightly packed fins which will dissipate heat most efficiently when paired with a higher CFM fan.

If you’re looking for complete silence, the Scythe Ninja stills holds the crown, but has received some tough competition from the HR-01 (Thermalright) and their own Infinity/Mine products.

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With the Athlon 64 part finished it’s time to start anew on our S775 test setup, let’s meet the contestant on the next page ->

8 Heatsinks Compared

These were the heatsinks tested on the Intel S775 setup:

Intel Aluminum Heatsink

Coolermaster Eclipse

Coolermaster Mars

Coolermaster Hyper TX

Scythe Ninja

Titan Amanda TEC

TTIC BIG

Zalman CNPS9700LED

S775 Test Setup and Methodology

We build a new S775 system with new parts from Alternate.de, the CPU chosen is one hot running Pentium 4 524, 3.06Ghz. It is mounted on a Swiss-army knife equivalent of motherboards: an Asrock 775Dual-VSTA.



The mounting system on S775 is quite straight forward and well thought out, 4 holes around the socket serve as mounting points for the push pins on the standard Intel cooler. Installation is a snap, and removal is very easy too.



With the stock cooling and at stock voltage the 3Ghz P4 was running stable at 3.68Ghz, quite a nice improvement from default speeds.

A Watt Meter recorded peak power consumption under heavy CPU load at 138W, which is less than our previous Athlon 64 setup which consumed up to 165W. The Asrock bios lacks CPU voltage manipulation, so at default voltage is seems this Prescott setup is more power friendly then the over-volted AMD system.

We’re re-using the case, power supply and VGA card from our previous Athlon 64 test setup to complete the S775 system:

Intel S775 Setup
CPU	Pentium 4 524 @ 3628Mhz - 1.36v vcore
Mainboard	Asrock 775Dual-VSTA
Memory	1 * 512Mb Mushkin PC3200 LVLII V2
Other	Antec Sonata II with AcoustiFan DustPROOF 120mm @ 5v in the rear as outtake (mounted with soft-mounts) ATI R9000 Passive Cooling Silverstone EFN-300 300W Passive Cooled PSU Seagate 7200.8 200Gb HDD in Scythe Quiet Drive

in-take temperature was measured at 22°C for all tests, but temp fluctuations, different mounting and user error can account up to 1-3°C of inaccuracy in the obtained results. Please keep this in mind when looking at the results. Each heatsink was tested repeatedly; if we got questionable results the test was restarted.


dBA meter is placed right at the edge of the case - with side panel removed

Noise level of each HSF combo was recorded with SmartSensor SL4001A, the sensor was placed ~5cm away from the side of the case with panel removed. The lowest dBA reading in the test room was 37.8dBAwith system running without HSF fan.

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 colour as Ceramique, but only a break in time of 30min!

Arctic Silver's ArctiClean was used to clean off thermal paste of the CPU and heatsink between tests

Fans used for comparison

To eliminate as much variables in the tests we test each heatsink with a "reference" fan if it can be mounted.

Delta NFB0912L 92mm: 42CFM

GlobalWin NCB: 41.7CFM


Onto our first new contestant ->

TTIC NPH Big
Provided by: TTIC

nPowertek/TTIC has been a regular here at Madshrimps for the past several years, they have consistently updated their CPU heatsinks design to match the latest platforms and industry trends. Their main driving force for their products is the use of a heat column in the center of the heatsink, which makes direct contact with the CPU and dissipates heat quickly, delivering impressive performance numbers overall.

Their latest additions is their most ambitious product yet, the NPH Big, as the name implies, is a huge 1kg+ tower cooling with a large dissipation surface made from aluminum fins.

Platform compatibility: Intel Socket 775

Fan Support: 120mm (fan included - ~2500rpm)

Dimensions: 150x127x77 mm

Weight (with fan): 1058gr



Inside the retail package you find a backplate, a transparent 120mm fan, mounting clips, small tube of thermal paste and a manual on how to get the fan onto the heatsink. There are no instructions included on how to install the cooler onto the CPU, but it’s a straight forward process, as the mounting screws are pre-attached to the heatsink construction.



The aluminum fins are spread out to cover the size of a 120mm fan, this makes the NPH Big one of the largest heatsinks tested to date. Below you can see a direct photo comparison with the Scythe Infinity (which is not a small either either).



The base of the NPH Big is the bottom of the heat column, which has been lapped almost to perfection:



Installation

To get this monster onto your CPU you’ll need to take your motherboard out of the case, put the back plate… on the back, and then screw the heatsink on tight:



If you have a larger chipset heatsink there might be a fitting issue, while the NPH Big does clear the area around the socket, there’s not much room left:



The S775 mounting method allows you to rotate the heatsink in 90°C steps (if you have room inside your case/ around the CPU socket) , so we got the NPH Big lined up perfectly with the rear exhaust fan:



Ready for testing!

Titan Amanda TEC
Provided by: Titan

Titan has send us some high quality CPU coolers in the past, going from the larger Vanessa-L with 120mm support to the low cost 92mm Tower heatsinks. Today they send us rather unique product, this HSF uses an active TEC to help cool the CPU. We’ve seen this design before by another company going by the name of MACS. The Titan Amanda differs slightly with the fan setup and how the TEC unit is controlled.

The Amanda has two bulky 92x92x32mm fans which spin at approximately ~1600rpm. There are 4 heat pipes attached in pairs of 2 to the top/bottom of the TEC, this allows the unit to operate without the TEC active during idle CPU moments.

Platform compatibility: Intel Socket 775

Fan Support: 2x92mm (fans included = ~1600rpm)

Dimensions: 140 x 95 x 170 mm

Weight (with fan): 1035gr



The large box contains plenty of goodies, a back plate and screws take care of getting the heatsink onto your CPU, then there are a collection of power wires and a PCI controller card; a tube of thermal paste, detailed instructions manual and weight reduction cables round up the package contents.



A wind tunnel sort of design lets the air flow through the collection of tightly packed aluminum fins; the design is identical to the MACS Triumph we tested earlier. Titan decided to swap one high speed 92mm fan with two lower CFM models.


This is the MACS Triumph Athlon 64 version

Looking at the bottom of the unit the mounting brackets are revealed as well as nicely polished copper base.



Installation

The Titan Amanda turns your installation method upside down, instead of placing the heatsink onto the CPU, you need to put your motherboard/CPU on the Amanda. It takes a bit of practice to get it right, and an extra pair of hands will come in handy.


Protective plastic rings are taped on the mounting holes

With the heatsink in place the motherboard is dominated by this large structure, we found no incompatibility issues on the Asrock motherboard, but with the Amanda lunging over the memory slots, a taller module (like Corsair Dominator) might cause problems.



With the CPU in place all that is left is putting the PCI controller in a spare slot, and connecting all the necessary wires, each one uses a plug ‘n play connector so you can’t accidentally plug them in the wrong way. If you want to monitor the RPM of the fans two 3-pin connectors are provided.



With the motherboard back in the case we were left with little room between the rear fan and the exhaust 92mm fan from the Amanda. This might cause turbulence, and ends up creating more noise, but that’s only theory, we’ll soon find out in practice.



The status of the Amanda's TEC can be checked at the back of your system through the LEDs on the PCI bracket, the one on the left indicates power, the middle one lights up in case of a problem, the right one goes on if the TEC is in use at higher CPU temps.



At full load the system power usage went up from 138W (with stock Intel HSF) to 193W when the TEC was powered on. Taking into account PSU efficiency the increase is pretty on par with the TEC's rated 50W.

Amanda is ready for testing!

Zalman CNPS9700LED
Provided by: Zalman

We don’t need to introduce Zalman, do we? Their latest high end CPU cooler, CNPS9500LED, was quite popular with good reason, as it offered a respectable performance/noise balance. Today we have the follow-up in the test labs, the 9700LED, as you might expect, features a larger fan and more/larger copper fins to remove the heat.

Platform compatibility: Intel Socket 775, AMD S939/AM2

Fan Support: 110mm (custom size 1250~2800rpm)

Dimensions: 142 x 124 x 90 mm

Weight (with fan): 764gr



Inside the package you mounting gear for AMD/Intel platforms, a case badge, detailed manual, and (missing from the picture) a Fanmate2 fan controller. There is also a small bottle of nail polish, or at least that’s what it looks like at first sight.



The CNPS9700LED is quite intimidating if you are used to their smaller CNPS models, the “Zalman” branded fins are spread out around the larger (almost 120mm) fan which sits in the middle.



The nail polish turns out to be a bottle of high quality thermal paste which is applied… like nail polish. The base of the unit is almost a mirror, no large amount of thermal compound will be needed.



Installation

Installation requires motherboard removal, you install the S775 mounting bracket and then you install the CNPS9700CU with the correct clip. The unit can be orientated freely, it’s advised though to have the exhaust point to the rear of the case.



We read a few reports on the web on this new Super Thermal Grease and decided to try it out; we smeared a bit on the base of the heatsink



And also on the CPU:



Compared to the Arctic Lumiere we normally use for heatsinks tests, the results were far from bad:



While a 2-3°C difference is nothing earth shocking, it does mean the Super Grease will be better than your run-off-the mill white putty.

CNPS9700LED doesn’t look half bad either when powered on, if you have a case window, it will stand out:



Zalman is ready for testing!

Coolermaster Hyper TX
Provided by: Coolermaster

Coolermaster’s company name was not chosen by accident, they are the providers for many system cooling products, going from CPU heatsink, chipsets to VGA cooling (seen the latest NVIDIA whisper quiet 8800GTX reference cooler?). Today we have compact tower heatsink in for test, it comes with a 92mm fan and plug and play installation.

Platform compatibility: Intel Socket 775, AMD S939/AM2

Fan Support: 92mm (included 650 ~ 1800 RPM with PWM)

Dimensions: 90 x 44 x 136.5 mm

Weight (with fan): 425gr



Package contents are minimal as you don’t need much to get going with the Hyper TX. The design of the Hyper TX is a welcome change from the “huge” contraptions we tested earlier, a series of heat pipes are joined in a copper base and go up in U from, the aluminum fans are spread out evenly and cooled by a 92mm fan which is mounted using anti-vibration rubbers! The 92mm bracket also has custom design to allow more air to be pulled in from the surround area further improving the performance/noise ratio.



At the rear of the heatsink the plastic transparent shroud continues to form a “spoiler” like piece which helps guide air over the motherboard area directly below; on most motherboards this will be the PWM area, which will get some fresh air by this small, yet useful design decision.



The base comes pre-applied with quality thermal compound, there’s no extra thermal compound tube included, so you better get the installation right from the first try.



The base shows very small signs of machine lapping, it’s almost perfect, we’ve come quite a long way.



Installation

Plug and Play really works this time around, the Hyper TX uses the same push pins as the standard Intel Cooler, it can be orientated freely to fit the socket orientation; the whole process takes less than 30 seconds! The fan connector has 4-pin and makes good use of the PWM function if your motherboard supports it.



The small “spoiler” guides the air over the PWM area:



Ready for testing ->

Coolermaster Eclipse
Provided by: Coolermaster

Coolermaster was never afraid to take an unconventional approach to conventional air cooling, their past products are proof of that, as well as the heatsink tested here, the Eclipse is quite a bizarre construction.

Not only is the form quite striking, the fan used is not your usual axial DC fan, the fan is integrated into the heatsink and blows air through the aluminum fins of the Eclipse.

The sample we received from Coolermaster was showroom model which has seen some action, the retail packaging was not in the mint condition, so we asked our colleagues at BigBruin if we could use some of their photos and they happily applied, thanks guys!


Picture from BigBruin.com

Platform compatibility: Intel Socket 775, AMD S939/AM2

Fan Support: 66x68 mm (custom design 900 ~ 3300 RPM with Eclipse)

Dimensions: 132 x 120 x 105 mm

Weight (with fan): 670gr


Picture from BigBruin.com

In the box you’ll find a detailed instructions manual, a tube of thermal paste and mounting gear for the different platforms.

The special fan and shroud allow the airflow to be guided over other areas of the motherboard, spreading the cooling effect of the HSF. This shroud can be moved slightly to the left/right depending on where you need the air to flow, in the photos below you can see how the shroud is mounted:





The 4 heat pipes are joined in a copper base which has more than an ok finish:


Picture from BigBruin.com

The fan comes with 4-pin connector and takes advantage of PWM if your motherboard supports it; alternatively you use the very compact fan speed selector. The white connector you see in the photo below has a black jumper to select high/low fan speed, or when removed it will use PWM; it’s simple yet effective method.



Installation

Installation requires motherboard removal, once you have installed the correct brackets on the Eclipse you push the mounting screws through the 4 holes around the socket, then you take the motherboard and flip it around to screw the nuts onto the bolts using this little gimmick:



Due to the sheer size of the Eclipse you will most likely be limited in your orientation options, in our test case with the heatsink lunging over the chipset cooling we got all the clearance needed to install the motherboard without issue back into the case.



Ready for testing ->

Coolermaster Mars
Provided by: Coolermaster

The Mars takes an inverted approach to CPU cooling, placing the heat pipes and ALU fins around the fan in the center, the unit quite compact and comes with a LED fan for extra bling.

The sample Mars we received was also showroom model which has seen some action, the retail packaging was not in the mint condition, we asked our colleagues at BigBruin if we could use some of their photo and they happily applied, thanks guys!


Picture from BigBruin.com

Platform compatibility: Intel Socket 775, AMD S939/AM2

Fan Support: 90x25.4 mm (custom design 900 ~ 3000 RPM with PWM)

Dimensions: 132 x 120 x 105 mm

Weight (with fan): 672gr


Picture from BigBruin.com

In the box you’ll find a detailed instructions manual, a tube of thermal paste and mounting gear for the different platforms. (Same mounting method as the Eclipse, practically the same mounting hardware).

A total of three heat pipes run through the top and base of the Mars, from the top piece a series of aluminum fins are attached, the whole looks like an inverted pear.




While the Mars is considerably taller than the stock Intel heatsink, around the socket area is occupies less space, allowing it to fit on virtually every motherboard out there.



The base has an excellent finish:


Picture from BigBruin.com

Identical to the Eclipse, the Mars’ fan also comes with 4-pin connector and takes advantage of PWM if your motherboard supports it; alternatively you use the very compact fan speed selector. The white connector you see in the photo below has a black jumper to select high/low fan speed, or when removed it will use PWM; it’s simple yet effective method.

Installation

Installation requires motherboard removal, once you have installed the correct brackets on the Mars you push the mounting screws through the 4 holes around the socket, then you take the motherboard and flip it around to screw the nuts onto the bolts using this little gimmick:



When the unit is powered up it lights up cool blue:



Ready for testing ->

Comparison Heatsink : Scythe Ninja

We re-tested the Scythe Ninja on the new S775 platform with the GlobalWin NCB to have a points of reference compared to our Athlon 64 results. The Ninja installation requires you to place a custom bracket at each side of the LGA775 socket, then you snap the Ninja in place.



The Scythe Ninja will be serious competitor as it has no less than 6 heat pipes and massive amounts of dissipation surface. Able to fit multiple 120mm fans this heatsink has been popular with many enthusiasts for a good reason.




Where possible we tested the fans at high and low speeds using a Zalman Fanmate 2. The Fanmate at high settings gives ~11v (so we’re running the fans undervolted!) and at lowest setting only ~4v!

A word about the noise readings, we did them at a very close distance of ~5cm at the side of the case, with the case panel removed. The reason for this is the rather high ambient noise in the test room. At larger distances with the side panel closed, we couldn’t pick up most of the coolers at low fan speed settings. In the charts below you can say that anything below 45dBA is whisper quiet!

S775 Results – Sorted by CPU temperature



Not taking into account the noise readings, we can see the Zalman CNPS9700LED in the lead closely followed by the Titan Amanda and Coolermaster Hyper TX.

The first quiet heatsink is again the Zalman which makes an impressive showing; the TTIC NPH Big is able to perform on par/slightly better than the Ninja, quite an accomplishment. Its stock fan is rather noisy at high speed, but becomes very quiet at low speeds.

The Intel Stock cooling has a temperature regulated fan, trying to keep the CPU temperature below 60°C at all times, when we left the machine running for several HOURS at full load the fan was spinning close to 4300rpm and at 66.8dBA it’s ear deafening. If we only loaded the system for half an hour the fan would reach ~2500rpm this gave a more acceptable 50dBA noise level, on par with some of the other heatsinks tested.

The Coolermaster Eclipse disappointed at high speed but was able to claim a super low noise level at lower speed, surprisingly the temperature only climbed by ~3°C, while the noise drop was close to 20dBA! The Mars had trouble keeping up at low speed but the system did not crash, no temperature throttling was happening either, at this speed the HSF was inaudible.

S775 Results – Sorted by dBA readings

If you don’t care much if your CPU runs 10°C hotter/colder but just want to have peace and quiet when you are working/gaming/… on your PC this ranking might be of more interest to you.



We’re happy too see almost all heatsinks tested to allow for silent computing without the danger of the CPU overheating. The Titan Amanda TEC lacks manual fan control and at ~1600rpm the two 92mm fans remain audible but not overly loud.


Conclusive Thoughts

Since December last year we’ve tested close to 50 new heatsinks on AMD and Intel platforms; we have noticed a positive trend developing, where silent computing is being put more into the spotlight.

With both AMD and Intel striving to produce cooler CPUs, these monster heatsinks will have an easy time keeping them cool, even at low fan speeds.

We hope you found this roundup useful. Until the next sitting!

We thank all companies for their continued support and help in providing us with test samples for these group tests.