Author: Brent Earls Date: April 01, 2008 Manufacturer: GlacialTech

« Installation Page 3: Testing and Conclusion

---

Upon turning the computer on, I was surprised with just how quiet the cooler proved to be. It was substantially quieter than the stock AMD cooler, and I could only hear it if I put my ear right against the case. In order to test the heatsink I used speedfan and prime95. The idle temperatures were taken after the computer had set idle at desktop for one hour, and the load temperatures were taken after two instances of prime95 had kept the processor fully loaded for one hour.

The test system is a media center machine with an AMD Athlon X2 4600+ on a Jetway motherboard with 3GB of RAM and a Hauppauge TV Tuner. Because of this the processor produces the majority of the computer’s heat.


The heatsink lowered idle temperatures by 5 degrees, and load temperatures by 22 degrees, a substantial gain. Using Arctic Silver 5 instead of the included thermal paste gave minimal improvement…


One degree on idle and load isn’t enough for me to justify the use of AS5, as this is just a normal workstation, but on an overclocking system you’d almost certainly want to switch out the thermal paste.

Pros:
Quiet
Lightweight
Effective
Cons:
Thermal paste not the best
Some motherboard mounting brackets may not work.

All in all, a quiet, efficient and lightweight cooler for a good price. I would definitely recommend it for a user who wants a quiet and lightweight cooler. At only $30, the heatsink is also priced for the average user. Once again, thanks to GlacialTech for providing us with the review unit.

---

« Installation Page 1: Introduction Page 2: Installation Page 3: Testing and Conclusion