Coolink copper based heatsink is the main subject of today's review. It is aimed at the budget-minded hardware enthusiast who's looking for the extra performance without having to pay a small fortune for it. Xtreme Tek Werkz provided us with a Coolink ARMORVS2 for testing.


The Heatsink

Uses Pentium 4 default bracket for installation

Soldered copper fin and copper base

Designed for 80mm fan

Measurement: 90 x 90 x 44mm

Weight: 450g

Aluminium has been thrown overboard in the design of the heatsink, delivering superior heat transfer through the use of copper, it is not skived as we have seen in other heatsink (e.g. Coolermaster X-Dream SE), but the fins are soldered to the copper base. The result however is very impressive, and as you will see during our testing, provides a decent amount of cooling power.



The Fan



The included fan is a real powerhouse, at its lowest settings it is virtually silent but doesn't provide much airflow. Thanks to the speed adjustment knob you can turn it all the way up to 4600rpm, although it doesn't quite match a Delta or Vantec Tornado it still pushes a lot of air at the cost of silence.



You'll also find some no-name thermal compound in the package, it is better then the TIM used by the default Intel cooler, and it spares you an extra trip to the hardware store!

The "gimmick" of this heatsink is of course the resemblance of the ARMOR-logo-Face finger guard on top of the FAN



It’s nice touch and it will be hard for anyone to make a wrong guess about what CPU cooling you're using.

Let's take a closer look at the heatsink and see how it performs ->

ARMOR Heatsink:

The workmanship on this heatsink is most excellent, great finishing and the overall look is that of a quality product.







The bottom side is quite flat, but might need some "lapping" to provide 100% contact with the P4 CPU.

Installation

This heatsink uses one of the most user-friendly installation methods, using the standard P4 brackets you can simply push the heatsink into its place and secure it.



The speed adjustment knob sits between the motherboard and the fan giving you the possibility to monitor the FANs rotation speed in the BIOS or in Windows using MBM5.



Everything is installed and ready to be tested ->

Test Setup:

JMke's Test Setup
CPU	Pentium 4 "C" 2400Mhz @ 3200Mhz
Mainboard	Asus P4C800
Cooling	- Coolink ARMORVS2 - Thermalright SP-94
Memory	1 * 512Mb PC3700 Corsair
Video	nVidia Geforce 1 DDR

For comparison I used Thermalright's SP-94 heatsink, one of the top ranking heatsinks when it comes down to performance. It has a retail price of $50/€50 without fan, and can be considered a high-end heatsink. Does the Coolink stand a chance?

During these tests the room temperature was kept at 21.5°C



What do these numbers tell us? It seems like this heatsink isn't the worst by far. Although it is unable to keep up with the SP-94 is sheer cooling power, on its own it delivers some pretty impressive results.
Using the most silent setting of the fan it keeps the CPU at 46°C, stable, at 3.2ghz! Cranking up the speed of the fan makes the temperature drop 12°C, which gives you some headroom if you want to push your CPU to the limit.


Conclusion

The Coolink ARMOR heatsink can be found at a price of $29 while the SP-94 suggested retail price is $50. That's a $20 difference for a 5°C improvement in temperature. If you are looking for the best of the best you can be sure that you will be spending some $$$. But when you are an avid overclocker who doesn't have deep pockets but who still wants to get above average performance, look no further then this all-copper ARMORVS2 heatsink!

PRO
Very Easy installation
Silent yet powerfull fan thanks to
speed adjustement knob!
good price/performance ratio


CON
The fan makes a lot of noise at maximum setting
Included thermal compound = no-name


I would like to thank Xtwerkz for giving us the possibility to test this heatsink, pay them a visit as they have a nice line-up of out of the ordinary hardware and services!



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