Why is ThermalTake totally Absent from recommanded HS ?

tof · Post by **tof** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 8:41 am

In Europe (France & Germany especially), The Thermaltake Silent Boost K7 is considered as one of the best Socket A cooler. Combined with its low cost (~20$), it makes a winner for many...

I was wondering why it's so absent from spcreview since ALL other good HS are around ? Since I believe it's a US company, it should be readily available in north America ?

Two of the test are here :
http://www.overclockercafe.com/Reviews/ ... index.html
http://www.pcsilencieux.com/article-43.html
It shows that SB K7 would be rated 7

(due to relative performance with the SLK947) in the HS recommanded chart

Fanless 103 seems promising as well, I would like to get opinion on these

(The Zalman 7000 does fit my NF7-S

)

silencery · Post by **silencery** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 9:56 am

In my personal experience, thermaltake is horrible when it comes to offering silent cooling products. In fact, I was happily (read: ignorantly) using some thermaltake HSF combos, including the silent boost, until I decided to try the Zalman 7000.

To say the least, it was truly a revelation in my silent computing experience. Not only was the zalman much more quiet, but it cooled just as well if not better than the thermaltake. I highly recommend trying out the 7000AlCu if you have such an option.

I believe i've seen other similar posts around these forums as well so check em out; I'm sure you'll find the answers

Post by **Rusty075** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 10:25 am

Besides Tt generally producing junk, there's also the practical aspect that we haven't review any their stuff yet

(and yes, I've asked

)

Sooty · Post by **Sooty** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 11:01 am

Rusty075 wrote:Besides Tt generally producing junk, there's also the practical aspect that we haven't review any their stuff yet

(and yes, I've asked )

TT might be worried that Ralph will be the reviewer

Besides, there's their customer support to consider. That poor guy getting shafted when trying to get a door for his case

(I think I read that on here).

tof · Post by **tof** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 11:43 am

Rusty075 wrote:Besides Tt generally producing junk

True to a certain extent, I hate their website as an exemple and most of their colorfull (smoke & mirrors type stuff) products.

But it seems like they also have some very smart people in the HS development, unless they subcontract the design to some other skillful companies.

One exemple is this very nice HS (probably ahead of his time) :
http://www.thermaltake.com/coolers/itbu ... -p0030.htm
It's ultimate performance & quite the opposite to the other Junk Tt products(: it's not sexy/attractive et all)

Post by **Rusty075** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 12:04 pm

Now that is kinda interesting....similar to some of the other "side blowing" HSF's that are appearing now, but interesting nonetheless.

But at 56dBa, I wouldn't consider it a likely candidate for the Recommended List either, unfortunately. (maybe if the fan is swap-able)

tof · Post by **tof** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 12:10 pm

What I appreciate about this BTX HS is that the outside material is well chosen. That's the only thing I don't like about XP120 or others : They still choose the bright/shiny materials to seduce buyers.... Ideally a heatsink should be the same color as the tiles of the NASA space shuttle(dark carbon-type black) to better dissipate power throught IR emissions
At least this Tt HS has that

monkiman · Post by **monkiman** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 12:26 pm

But wait! It has "Noise Elimination Sponge" where can I get me one of those

sgtpokey · Post by **sgtpokey** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 12:32 pm

Ideally a heatsink should be the same color as the tiles of the NASA space shuttle(dark carbon-type black) to better dissipate power throught IR emissions

Uh, sorry, but that doesn't sound quite right to me. Color would make a difference in absorbing/reflecting the type of radiation produced by the sun, but I'm not sure if that same principle applies to the heat emitted by the processor. I guess at some point I'll have to do some research on this but It seems to me there are different principles involved here.

My gut tells me to look at cooking: the conductive properties of aluminum versus are well pronounced in terms of how quickly heat is transferred from the heat source and how long the material retains the heat. It doesn't matter what color your pots and pans are, a shiny aluminum pot reacts the same way as a dull black one.

pony-tail · Post by **pony-tail** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 12:38 pm

I have 2 of their Coolers - a Golf 325 and a 103 fanless .
The Golf is an excellent heatsink ,BUT does not work well with fans below 2000 rpm
The 103 - is said to cool a 3.6 PressHot and would NOT efectively cool a 2.8 PressHot. - on the good side it works very well with a 3.0 Northwood
As for all the Zalman FanBoys around here I have quite a bit of Zalman gear around and only ONE item in current use (a VGA cooler ). the various other items are not in use because of issues they have - NO more Zalman for me.
TT stuff is cheap , and disposable but readily available . Their advertising is just straight out B.S. but occaisionally they turn out something good
Mind you nobody flamed Thermalright for the ALX-800 because it would not work with an undrvolted L1A.

Post by **Rusty075** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 12:55 pm

A dark color does increase the emissivity of a heatsink, which improves its abilityto radiate heat, but for heatsinks, radiation plays a very minor part. Convection and conduction are far and away the biggest cooling principles at work at the temperatures we're dealing with.

The reduction in convection caused by the black coating (which will have a lower conductivity than the copper or aluminum) will be more than the increase in radiation.

If the heatsink's were 500°, then things would be different.

tof · Post by **tof** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 1:44 pm

Rusty075 wrote:A dark color does increase the emissivity of a heatsink, which improves its abilityto radiate heat, but for heatsinks, radiation plays a very minor part. Convection and conduction are far and away the biggest cooling principles at work at the temperatures we're dealing with.

I agree, good point

Rusty075 wrote:The reduction in convection caused by the black coating

But I did not think that a black specialised paint would be of any penalty to convection

tof · Post by **tof** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 1:49 pm

Actually, I was wondering why Thermalright suddenly decided to Nickel-plate their HS. Hummm May be... Even though shiny to the human eye, this Nickel is dark in the Infra-Red spectrum ?
I think I heard some special materials are like that.

If not, I suppose they did the plating just for the sexy look

Viperoni · Post by **Viperoni** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 4:24 pm

A long time ago on the Anantech forums, a guy posted some stuff that said their heatsinks suck (surprise surprise!).
This was in the days of Gorbs and Alpha pep66's and pal6035's.
They tried to muscle their way into getting him to stop.

From that point on, I've hated them.

pony-tail · Post by **pony-tail** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 4:51 pm

I would have to say that their "specifications" are as believable as a Politition's Promise.

But their stuff works - just not as advertised.

TheDarkHacker · Post by **TheDarkHacker** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 6:57 pm

the only thermaltake product that might be good is there fan less power supply. put i will not be the person taking the chance in buying it

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 8:59 pm

tof wrote:In Europe (France & Germany especially), The Thermaltake Silent Boost K7 is considered as one of the best Socket A cooler. Combined with its low cost (~20$), it makes a winner for many...

BTW, that's a Panaflo FBL08A12M1BX on that heatsink. Without proper undervolting, it's rather loud.

tof · Post by **tof** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 2:55 pm

sthayashi wrote:
tof wrote:In Europe (France & Germany especially), The Thermaltake Silent Boost K7 is considered as one of the best Socket A cooler. Combined with its low cost (~20$), it makes a winner for many...
BTW, that's a Panaflo FBL08A12M1BX on that heatsink. Without proper undervolting, it's rather loud.

Indeed 2400rpm out from the box... as a zalman 7000 in high speed mode!
once at 5 or 7v (using dead cheap resistors or diodes) it's competitively silent

Also, something interesting is that the thermal resistance they(Tt) quote for the SB K7 is 0.48deg/W. Many tests show they actually do much better than that

earworm · Post by **earworm** » Sun Oct 24, 2004 4:42 am

so its not true that for example the
ThermalTake Silent Tower
only produces 21dba of noize?

whats so crappy about them? they do'nt cool well, they do produce lots of noize, they don't last long?

just wondering,
thanx

Bluefront · Post by **Bluefront** » Sun Oct 24, 2004 5:03 am

earworm....the bias against Thermaltake products in general, is based partially on a few bad products, a few really noisy products, some false and mis-leading advertising concerning specs, but IMHO it is mostly based on a simple "monkey see, monkey do" attitude.

If you read enough TT bad-mouthing, it might seem cool to parrot the opinions of others, no matter if your experience with the product line differs.

As a test, just say something good about any TT product, see what happens.....

Once I posted a photo showing a RAM stick with a heat-spreader, with a TT logo. My only feed-back was some lamer complaining about the TT product....like it was noisy or something.

Really noisy TT product

egalitarian · Post by **egalitarian** » Sun Oct 24, 2004 7:18 am

earworm wrote:so its not true that for example the
ThermalTake Silent Tower
only produces 21dba of noize?

I've used to have one of those and must say that 21dba is far far off the truth. It was more like 30 or more. I sold it the same week I got it.

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Sun Oct 24, 2004 8:06 am

I think it's kind of like why I hate creative labs so much, but not nearly as deserved, thermaltake doesn't monopolize the market, they just seem to be able to distribute their products effectively. And I'm not sure that stores/assemblers which only have TT and no name heatsinks would neccessarily have anything else instead if they didn't have the TT stuff.

Plus, they really pull their statistics off the top af their heads, but I don't think they really do it to mislead, they're too inconsistant, eg. they have the same specs for 80, 92 and 120 mm fans.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Sun Oct 24, 2004 8:58 am

earworm wrote:so its not true that for example the
ThermalTake Silent Tower
only produces 21dba of noize?

That's absolute BS.

Even with the fan running at 5V it's louder than 21dBA.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Sun Oct 24, 2004 9:01 am

Bluefront wrote: Once I posted a photo showing a RAM stick with a heat-spreader, with a TT logo. My only feed-back was some lamer complaining about the TT product....like it was noisy or something.

Or maybe they just mentioned that heatspreaders on DDR RAM are as useless as tits on a boar and that you'd just be wasting your money to purchase them.

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Sun Oct 24, 2004 9:15 am

Ralf Hutter wrote: Or maybe they just mentioned that heatspreaders on DDR RAM are as useless as tits on a boar and that you'd just be wasting your money to purchase them.

A set of thermaltake ramsinks worked well for me. My ram went from not working at defalt settings to working with 2-2-2 timings.

Bluefront · Post by **Bluefront** » Sun Oct 24, 2004 9:22 am

Funny....some mfgs install these heat spreaders stock on their expensive high-performance ram sticks. Fact of the matter is, having a heat spreader on a ram stick, makes it much easier to install a heat sensor, and gives a better indication of the overall temp of the whole ram chip. If you're interested in such things that is. IMHO.

I submit this indirect bad-mouthing of a TT product, is exactly what I talked about in my previous post. IMHO, that is.

earworm · Post by **earworm** » Sun Oct 24, 2004 12:41 pm

interesting, naw the DDR ram in my pc is the most silent component i got

but a lill question about it though....do you even need heatsinks on your ram if you don't overclock your system?
are those heatsinks reduntant for people that run a "regular" pc setup? or does ram really heat up your pc that much.....

yeah, there's still lots of newbies out there, aren't there..

pony-tail · Post by **pony-tail** » Sun Oct 24, 2004 3:30 pm

Fanless 103 seems promising as well, I would like to get opinion on these

Read this post, I bought one when they first came out .
http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=15329

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 5:38 am

Bluefront wrote:Funny....some mfgs install these heat spreaders stock on their expensive high-performance ram sticks.

Only because people have come to expect to see them included with high end RAM. I know this might be difficult to believe, but it's marketing.

Look what Corsair did with their high end RAM last year. It was no longer good enough to put on good 'ol heatspreaders, they had to add flashing lights to the tops of 'em to entice folks to buy their RAM.

If it'd make you feel better, I'll add that it's silly for any manufacturer to install these "heatspreaders", including OCZ, Corsair, Mushkin, Kingston et. al.

There. I slammed everyone, not just TT. Happy?

Why is ThermalTake totally Absent from recommanded HS ?

Why is ThermalTake totally Absent from recommanded HS ?

Re: Why is ThermalTake totally Absent from recommanded HS ?

Re: Why is ThermalTake totally Absent from recommanded HS ?