CPU Coooler Charts at toms hardware

[moogaloo]

Well the spcr fav Ninja did not too so well

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/CPU-Coole ... 30115.html

[Felger Carbon]

The sound level readings were suspiciously close together. They needed to use an SLM with a lower self-noise, or closer miking, or both.

Since the actual quietness could not be shown, it's only natural that the Ninja - which is a quiet heatsink, not one for overclockers - is not shown in its best light.

[Blacktales]

Whatever result the Ninja might have in that test, they used pushpins so it's pretty much irrelevant......

[Das_Saunamies]

We all know how good a source the Do-It-All Tom's is.

Also, seeing how they mounted not only using push-pins, but by placing the fan blowing DOWN through the cooler, one can only wonder what manner of pillocks were in charge of this particular loot-and-pillage.

I'm sure a more in-depth reading session with the methodology and tests would reveal even more of these blunders, but why bother. I have SPCR for this sort of thing!

[seraphyn]

Euhm, did they just test CPU coolers in an open air setup?
Kinda ruins the whole test, imo.

Also a real short view on every single cooler. I understand the article would've been massive if they'd review every single cooler properly, but from the few that i read, i didn't get much needed info at all, just your generic "install like this" "we got a X degree temp" "conclusion, it sucked".

[spookmineer]

From page 2:

The worse the cooler performs the more energy the CPU will consume, as it will be operating at a higher core temperature.

Somehow that makes no sense to me at all.
It sounds as, heatsink A which performs worse than heatsink B, will make the CPU consume more power.

Same page:

The duration of the measurement is determined by the maximum temperature that the cooler reaches. A very bad cooler may reach its highest temperature in a matter of seconds, while the other extreme, such as a very efficient water cooler, may take up to half an hour.

I don't mind a heatsink heating up fast, as long as it keeps things cool.
Theoretically, a watercooled setup could reach a higher maximum temperature than an aircooled setup, but it will take longer for the WC setup to reach that maximum. Heat capacity is different then thermal conduction (it almost raises the question if they know this).
Most of these heatsinks might be of the same material, but the statement is not correct (or so it seems to me).

[walle]

Whatever result the Ninja might have in that test, they used pushpins so it's pretty much irrelevant......

The reviewer mounted the cooler as it was intended to be mounted, just as he should have done. For you and I , including other members here at SPCR those results could very much be viewed as irrelevant, but not so for the average Joe who doesn’t tinker and fine-tune his hardware. Look; it would be like testing a Ferrari on Nûrburgring (the green hell) whilst afterwards blaming the driver for poor lap times because he used the tyres the car was sold with opposed to aftermarket race tyres.

[=assassin=]

I wasn't too impressed with Toms roundup :/

[antifro]

I'm a daily reader of Tom's. Usually they do a great job with their articles, IMO. However this has got to be one of the worse articles they've written. Am I to believe that a Ninja got 70 C?? Well what did an intel stock fan get then? I'm very curious.

Oh an one more observation on that stupid quote:

The worse the cooler performs the more energy the CPU will consume, as it will be operating at a higher core temperature

So the cooler perofrms poorly, chip uses more power, produces more heat, performs even worse, chip uses even more power, produces even more heat, then the cooler performs even worse than before, and so on... doesnt make much sense.

This is an embarassment to their testing crew and even more so to the editor.

[walle]

This is an embarassment to their testing crew and even more so to the editor.

I agree, the review was not up to their usual standards and I guess its safe to say that the SPCR jury is pretty much in on that one; perhaps the reviewer had a bad day and the editor an even worse one (linguistic wise) thus paving the way for the poorly execution, not that that would be an excuse really, still, trying to cut them some slack, although I have to admit; its difficult to do that on this one.

[figment]

I have to agree that this article is less than helpful. I don't consider myself an expert in CPU cooling, but a few of the things they did seem confusing to me. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on any of this.

1: Screws are bad?

I understand the Average-Joe factor of scoring sinks with pushpins higher on the installation, but they seem surprisingly harsh toward backplate retention designs. How many people replace their CPU HS without pulling the motherboard from the case? Perhaps I just don't do it enough. I've always removed the motherboard. Working in a mid-tower is cramped enough. I would have rather they just score on whether it was easy or not and not chop a solution just because it required a step most people do anyway.

2: Open air test?

I know they've got loads of heatsinks to run through and it's a pain, but what is the point of heat and noise tests when you're running in open air? You're going to end up with unrealistic results. No case means that you're essentially testing the coolers in a non-moving volume of air. From what I can guess, that's going to heavily favor water-coolers and high-volume fans. The results seem to agree.

3: Fans pointed... down?

Who mounts HSF's like this? They even went through the effort to mount the motherboards vertically with a real graphics card underneath them to simulate the added heat they might put off into the (non-existent) case. But then, they mount the HS and HSF so that the fan blows *down*?

Now, for the most part, the air around the board is going to be completely still, but I would still expect heat to rise. I can't imagine any worse way to set up the fan than to have it blowing air down onto the video card, only to have that air rise again. Perhaps they thought this was better than pulling in the heat from the video card. It doesn't really matter in the end. 95% of the setups I've seen mount the HSF so that it blows front-to-back.

The only cooler which might have been mounted differently (can't really tell) is the Thermalright, which, shockingly, had the best performance of the air coolers.

Normally I like Tom's for technical reviews (memory and motherboards and so forth). I guess I'll just stick to that. This one is botched.

[George van Kralingen]

Hi Figment,

I totally agree with you that this review is not quite "helpfull"

First of all I can't figure out for what this testsystem is going to be used ?
Gaming ? HTPC ?

As a systembuilder (and a real fanatic about computer silence) I never had a customer who was willing to buy a computer without a case , and I don't believe that in the near future this will happen !

In my opinion Mr. Tom is living somewhere between the earth and the moon !

Rgs.,

George

[thejamppa]

Most peoples think cases are just to keep hardware in its place or like my big brother puts it: "to keep all the junk in" Not particularly inspiring when it comes from person who has teached IT for quite long. In certain point they are. But when correctly chosen, designed and out together, case will be essential part of system cooling and noise reduction. That is why I do not like tests which are done on open test bench.

[jezza101]

hi, would someone mind briefly explaining the point on the push pins? How should the fan be attached? I guess the idea is to get better contact for more efficient cooling? Although Ive built a few PCs i've not done anything other than slot things in - is this considered tricky?!

Thanks.

[MaZa]

from what I have gathered, push-pins are harder to get fitted tightly enough. The heatsink might even get eenyweeny bit aligned, butchering the cooling properties due to uneven contact. Plus, they might wear out and get looser as time passes.

[figment]

I guess the idea behind pushpins is that they are an easy way to attach sinks to CPUs. Tom's is right that you can put them in without taking the board out, but in my experience, you can't *remove* them (well) without taking the board out. So what is the point? If its a new build, then you should have put the sink on before putting the board in the case, if its an upgrade, you'll probably need to pull the board to get the old sink off anyway.

Additionally, pushpins are usually spring loaded so that they apply pressure to the core (or IHS) but never too much. Of course, its been years since I've heard of widespread core damage due to heatsink pressure, and its now quite common for the pressure to be too small to hold heavier sinks against the CPU with uniform pressure.

To sum up: They seem like the cheap, simple way of solving the problem, but not the good way. I don't see why Tom's (or anyone) should prefer them to a bolt-through mechanism, and (in my mind) see quite a few reasons why they should be less desirable.

I found the whole article disappointing considering the fact that I'll be starting a build in a few months and was looking for a non-TRUE, non-Ninja option for cooling.

Oh well.

[figment]

hi, would someone mind briefly explaining the point on the push pins? How should the fan be attached?

"Pushpins" are a set of four plastic pins with "barbed" heads that pop through the motherboard and grab the opposite side. On the CPU side, they have springs which push the tails of the pins away from the motherboard, thus pressing the heatsink into the CPU.

Some people like them because you can mount them without needing access to the back of the motherboard.

The fan, if present, is usually mounted separately to the heatsink using brackets or screws or some other special mechanism.

[andyb]

Like many of Toms reviews, this article is retarded in many ways.

I can certainly understand why you might award or remove some points for ease of installation, but to give a full 3rd of the total points for installation is insane, they might as well have added another 10 point category, where the cheapest coolers would win, and all of the good (expensive ones) would have lost, thus averaging the field - that would be so funny to see the dirt cheap intel boxed cooler win on grounds of cost and ease of installation, that would be 20 points straight up

As far as the actual thermal testing is concerned, its bullshit. Testing a top of the line CPU in a system with onboard graphics just does not happen who would buy such a machine, and who runs their system without a case.??? Maybe retard Tom does, wouldnt surprise me But then again these are the jokers that have the fan blowing down.

Toms testing is more of a failure than any of those coolers that "failed" which pretty much makes the whole article pointless, and it will do more harm than good to the end user that is in the market for an aftermarket cooler.

On to their noise level monitoring, its pretty lame, not much more needs to be said.


Andy

[sheninat0r]

Worst review evar.

[vick1000]

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