by Sergey Lepilov
04/29/2008 | 06:44 PM
The companies manufacturing and selling cooling solutions under their brand names use dramatically different approach to developing and advancing their product line-ups. For example, the Japanese Scythe company has been launching new cooling solutions with remarkable consistency for both: overclocking fans (Zipang, Orochi) as well as less demanding mainstream users (Shuriken). Gigabyte and Xigmatek release new cooling solutions a little bit rarer. Unfortunately, we are witnessing a long-lasting slow-down in the Zalman camp, although this company used to be pretty aggressive in the cooling market for a long time. And as for CoolerMaster, they have been teasing overclockers with “multi-cylinder” coolers for quite some time, now.
However, there are indeed companies who update their already existing models slightly and release them to the market under new model names. A great example here would be ASUS Silent Knight II cooler that acquired a proud Roman “II” in the model name, though in reality differs only by a fan with pulse-width modulation (PWM) and “formal” support of the new processors. Here we can also add four new cooling solutions that we are going to discuss today. They are Zalman CNPS7500-Cu LED, Tuniq Tower 120-LFB, Noctua NH-U12P, and Thermaltake Big Typhoon 120 VX. So, how are the old-new coolers different from their predecessors and how efficient are they on a new quad-core processor compared against one of the best contemporary cooling solutions? We are going to answer these and a few other question sin our today’s article.
It is pretty hard to come across a CPU air cooler these days that will use no heat-pipes (we do not take into account cheap aluminum heatsinks here). However, we did find a cooler like that among the products of the Korean Zalman Company. We found two of them, actually: an all-copper Zalman CNPS7500-Cu LED and an aluminum cooler with a copper insert called Zalman CNPS7500-AlCu LED. Since the only difference between these two models is in the heatsink material, we are going to talk in detail only about he all-copper cooler.
A small box is made of thick cardboard. There is a transparent plastic casing inside holding the cooler:
The box contains detailed info on the cooler, its specifications and supported processors. Above the cooler you can find the accessories:
The accessories bundle includes everything necessary to install this cooler onto any contemporary platform and even on a pretty outdated Socket 478.
At first glance you realize that with their CNPS7500 model Zalman stepped back into far away 2004, when we all were fascinated with the cooling efficiency of the CNPS7700-Cu. Just take a look:
Yes, it is indeed the same CNPS7700, but smaller in size (CNPS7500 measures 121 x 121 x 67mm while CNPS7700 -136 x 136 x 67mm) and weighing a little less (848g CNPS7500 vs. 918g CNPS7700). The cooler design remained absolutely the same and looks like a cup made of thin copper plates:
Inside there are blades of a 120mm fan, which rotation speed may be adjusted from 1150 to 2300RPM at 17-32dBA of noise. The fan blades sit on the fan core and are fastened with screws on two sides.
The crews and two aluminum plates hold the copper rib array firmly together at the base. The base surface is very even, but is hardly finished at all:
You can feel the machine traces, so you might want to polish it off in order to win a few additional degrees during CPU cooling.
Zalman CNPS7500-Cu LED cooler can be installed onto contemporary mainboards for Intel processors quite easily. Note that nevertheless you will have to remove the board from the system case before installation, so that you could attach the plastic retention bracket to it first. The cooler retention clip catches on to it when the cooler is installed:
And that’s all. Although I have to say that the cooler is not pressed too hard against the processor heat-spreader, because we could feel Zalman CNPS7500-Cu LED slide over it a little. In case of K8 processors, the clip catches onto a standard plastic socket frame, so, you won’t have to remove the mainboard from the case.
The cooler seems to be very compact inside the case and doesn’t stay in the way of any other electronic components:
One of advantages of this cooling system is the direction of the airflow from the fan to the mainboard power elements and their heatsinks. According to Zalman engineers, this reduces the operational temperature of these elements and hence improves the overall system stability.
Besides, the cooler casts soft blue lighting:
The recommended price of the Zalman CNPS7500-Cu LED cooler is close to that of contemporary super-coolers and equals $45. It is pretty expensive for a simple copper cooler, I suppose. However, Zalman has never been known for democratic pricing…
The second old new cooler is none other but a Tuniq Tower 120, which is well-known to all overclocking fans, but with an “LBF” addition to its model name. LBF stands for Light Blue Fan. In other words, the only change compared with the previous model is the LED highlighted fan and Socket AM2 compatibility as stated on the cooler package. Nevertheless, let’s check out this cooler now.
The box remained the same: thick cardboard with a transparent window in the center of the box front:
The accessories bundled with the cooler also remained the same:
Tuniq Tower 120 cooler features three copper heatpipes 6mm in diameter soldered to the copper base. The heatpipes carry two aluminum plate arrays with a 120-mm fan inserted between them:
The cooler measures 131 x 108 x 153mm and weighs 798g. The distance between the heatsink plates is a little less than 2mm and the heatsink plate edges are bent downwards covering the sides of the heatsink.
The fan sits right in-between the two heatsink arrays:
So, one of the arrays is cooled down with an incoming airflow, while the other – with the outgoing one.
The 120 x 120 x 25mm fan sits in a metal frame with a decorative cover that is why you can easily replace it if it breaks or if you wish to use a more powerful fan:
The fan rotation speed can be adjusted with a bundled controller that is installed instead of one rare panel case brackets:
The fan rotation speed varies between 1000 and 2000RPM. So, summing everything up, we can conclude that the only difference between the new Tuniq Tower 120-LFB cooler and the first Tuniq Tower 120 revision is the LED lighting.
We checked the evenness of the cooler sole in our traditional way by checking the thermal compound imprint on the glass surface: it proved impeccable. However, we wish the finish quality were better:
The cooler may be installed onto LGA 775 and Socket 754/939/940/AM2 platforms. In the latter case you will use a simple clip catching to the standard socket bracket. As it usually happens with Intel processors, you will have to remove the mainboard from the system case before installing the cooler, because you will have to tighten it up to the back plate at the bottom of the PCB:
The cooler is pressed very firmly to the processor heat-spreader, so you shouldn’t apply too much force here, even though the cooler uses a backpate. I would also like to say that the heatsinks is pretty high above the cooler base (it measures about 55mm to the lower plate), so even very tall heatsinks on mainboard power elements shouldn’t prevent you from installing Tuniq Tower 120-LFB onto your platform.
The cooler looks monumentally inside a system case:
As I have already said, the fan is highlighted, however, since it is inside the whole structure, you can only see the blue lighting at the bottom of the cooler.
I conclusion I have to say that Tuniq Tower 120-LBF is priced at about $40.
Now we are going to talk about a new modification of a well-known Austrian cooler – Noctua NH-U12.
The package design of this Austrian cooler didn’t change that much. Now, however, you can learn about all the cooler key features and installation peculiarities from the box:
The accessories bundle changed a little bit, but each retention kit is still sealed in an individual marked plastic bag:
As for the differences from the previous model accessories bundle we should mention the Noctua NT-H1 thermal compound and more convenient resistor-adapters reducing the fan rotation speed.
The heatsink of this cooling solution remained unchanged:
The cooler sits on four copper heatpipes, although this time they are covered with a thin layer of nickel alloy. The heatpipes hold an array of aluminum plates set about 3mm apart. The side edges of these plates are bent downwards in the center partially blocking the airflow through the sides of the heatsink:
As you may remember from our previous review, the heatpipes are not linear. They sit in special grooves in the base of the cooler:
Although the base is not polished, it is impeccably even and its finish quality is way better than that of the previous two testing participants:
The second distinguishing feature of the modified cooler is a new more efficient Noctua NF-P12 fan, which we have already discussed in our previous articles, that is why we will not dwell on it here again.
The fan is attached to the heatsink with two wire clips that are much more convenient to use than the retentions of a Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme for instance:
There are four clips bundled with the cooler, which will allow you to install two fans onto the heatsink (the cooler comes only with one fan, though). Moreover, before installing the fan you should stick vibration absorbing silicone stripes to it that should also reduce the level of generated noise.
Noctua NH-U12P installs exactly the same way as Noctua NH-U12. The retention is very secure and allows installing the cooler facing in any direction (you will not be able to install it upside down, but I guess that’s ok). Noctua NH-U12P looks very impressive with two fans attached to it and it does demonstrate impressive cooling efficiency in reality:
The modified cooler is pretty expensive and is priced around $65.
The last but not the least testing participant of our today’s roundup is an improved Thermaltake Big Typhoon cooler.
The cooler comes in a large red box with a transparent window half the size of the box that gives you the opportunity to check out the cooler before buying it:
The box contains detailed info on the cooler specifications and supported processors. The accessories bundle sits at the bottom of the package in a separate box. Among them are: retention kit for LGA775 and K8 platforms, cooler installation manual and a pack of SilMORE thermal compound.
Just like the previous cooler models we discussed today, the design of Thermaltake Big Typhoon 120 VX didn’t undergo any serious modifications:
The cooler is based on six copper heatpipes 6mm in diameter that come out of a copper base. There are two arrays of thin aluminum plates sitting on these heatpipes. The whole thing is cooled with a 120 x 120 x 25mm fan:
By the way, the new fan is one of the two distinguishing features of the BigTyph VX, as it now features nine blades instead of seven and has a rotation speed controller that allows adjusting the fan speed from 1300 to 2000RPM:
The controller is installed directly on the fan itself:
The drawback of this solution is that you will need to open your system case (if you have one, of course) in order to adjust the fan rotation speed.
The cooler base is even, but its finish quality leaves much to be desired:
The second distinguishing feature of this cooler is a new retention mechanism. Instead of a backplate and spindles with screw nuts, you will use a retention bracket with regular plastic clips for LGA775 and a “swing” clip catching onto the plastic socket bracket for Socket 754/939/940/AM2.
In my opinion, the retention mechanism became less efficient. The cooler doesn’t sit tight on top of the CPU, it can slide easily over the thin layer of thermal compound, even though the imprint showed that it was even and without any gaps. However, there is one advantage: you will not need to remove the board from the system case to install the cooler any more.
The heatpipes coming out of the cooler base do not get in the way of heatsinks on mainboard’s power elements as well as tall memory heat-spreaders:
Thermaltake Big Typhoon 120 VX is priced pretty democratically compared with other super-coolers and hardly ever goes beyond $40 in retail stores. Unfortunately, Thermaltake hasn’t yet introduced any more efficient air coolers than Thermaltake Big Typhoon.
The detailed technical specifications and recommended retail pricing of the coolers discussed above are summed up in the following table for your convenience:
All today’s testing participants and their only competitor in this test session were tested in two modes: in an open testbed when the mainboard sits horizontally on the desk and the coolers are installed vertically, and in a closed testbed with the mainboard in vertical position.
We put together identical testbeds for our experiments:
Using the weakest cooling system of our today’s testing participants we managed to overclock our quad-core processor to 3.75GHz with the Vcore increased to 1.475V in the mainboard BIOS. The monitoring utilities reported the core voltage setting a little bit lower than what was set in the mainboard BIOS: around 1.44~1.46V. The system memory was working at 980MHz efficient frequency with 5-5-5-14_2T timings and 2.05V voltage. Later on when we tested the processor for maximum overclocking with each of the coolers, we increased its frequency and voltage in each case.
All tests were performed under Windows XP Professional Edition SP2. SpeedFan 4.34 Beta 44 was used to monitor the temperature of the CPU, reading it directly from the CPU core sensor. We reflashed the mainboard BIOS and updated all the monitoring utilities. As a result, we got the whole bunch of different temperature readings:
As you see, the difference between the readings from different monitoring programs reached 10ºC! It is very hard to determine with software tools which temperature is the closest to reality. That is why we decided not to veer away from our previously established methodology so the result charts will have the readings from SpeedFan utility. To be fair I have to say that the temperature differences between monitoring programs were identical in idle mode and under peak workload. So, no matter what readings I had decided to choose, the difference between tested coolers would have remained the same.
The mainboard’s automatic fan speed management feature was disabled for the time of the tests in the mainboard BIOS. The CPU thermal throttling was controlled with the new RightMark CPU Clock Utility version 2.35.0 that now supports Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 processor.
The CPU was heated up with OCCT (OverClock Checking Tool) version 2.0.0 in a 23-minute test with maximum CPU utilization, during which the system remained idle in the first and last 4 minutes of the test:
I performed at least two cycles of tests and waited for approximately 20 minutes for the temperature inside the system case to stabilize during each test cycle. The stabilization period in an open testbed took about half the time. The maximum temperature of the hottest CPU core of the four in the two test cycles was considered the final result (if the difference was no bigger than 1°C – otherwise the test was performed at least once again). Despite the stabilization period, the result of the second test cycle was usually 0.5-1°C higher.
The ambient temperature was checked next to the system case with an electronic thermometer that allows monitoring the temperature changes over the past 6 hours. During our test session room temperatures varied between 24.5 ~ 25°C. It is used as a staring point on the diagrams. Note that the fan rotation speeds as shown in the diagrams are the average readings reported by SpeedFan, and not the official claimed fan specifications.
The noise level of each cooler was measured according to our traditional method described in the previous articles with the help of an electronic noise meter – CENTER-321. The subjectively comfortable noise level was considered 34.5dBA and is marked with a dotted line in the diagram. The ambient noise from the system case without the CPU cooler didn’t exceed 33.2dBA when measured at 1m distance.
We believe it is not enough to just compare the coolers with one another that is why we decided to also compare them against Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme super-cooler equipped with Scythe Slip Stream 120 120x120x25mm fan rotating at ~1310RPM (according to the monitoring utilities):
The coolers on the diagrams below tested in an open testbed and inside a system case are split into two groups: with low level of generated noise and at maximum fan rotation speed. The results are the following:
The results demonstrated by Zalman CNPS7500-Cu LED show very clearly that heatpipe technology has pushed cooling solutions using them far ahead of regular copper heatsinks. This cooler evidently limits further quad-core CPU overclocking as it can no longer ensure its proper cooling. Inside a closed system case in quiet operational mode it is 17°C behind the weakest cooler with heatpipes. However, I have to say that at maximum fan rotation speed the cooling efficiency of Zalman CNPS7500-Cu LED improves significantly and the CPU temperature drops about 10°C. Even in an open testbed this cooler performs better, although it is still behind the cooling system with heatpipe technology.
The next testing participant – Tuniq Tower 120-LBF – is a significantly more efficiency cooling solution that the one from Zalman, although it didn’t become the performance leader today, too. In quiet mode inside a system case Tuniq cooler falls only 4°C behind Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme, and at higher fan rotation speed it catches up with it yielding only in the level of generated noise. In an open testbed the difference is greater, although Tuniq Tower 120-LBF is not critically behind one of the best coolers in the market.
Noctua NH-U12P also proved remarkably efficient on an overclocked processor. However, you will have to equip it with two 120x120x25mm fans to ensure that it really shows what it is capable of. Especially since everything you need for that is bundled with the cooler. As a result, Noctua NH-U12P becomes the best cooler of the four testing participants of our today’s roundup. And if you own a Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme, you still do not need to worry, as this quiet cooling solution with only one fan is as efficient as Noctua NH-U12P with two.
And finally, Thermaltake Big Typhoon 120 VX, which has become everyone’s favorite thanks to its affordable price and broad availability, performed as good as Tuniq Tower 120-LBF or Noctua NH-U12P with one fan.
As you understand, relatively weak Zalman CNPS7500-Cu LED didn’t let the other testing participants show their real potential that is why I suggest checking out the maximum processor frequencies we managed to obtain for each of the coolers. This round of tests was performed in an open testbed:
We achieved maximum processor frequency with each of the coolers in different work modes and with different voltage settings, which are mentioned on the diagram. And as we see, this test allows to distinguish between super coolers and just good cooling solutions. For example, Noctua with one fan rotating at 910RPM cools the overclocked processor as good as Tuniq Tower 120-LBF with a fan working at 1310RPM. Although you should keep in mind that their fans are designed differently. The Tuniq Tower 120-LBF with its fan rotating at maximum speed can squeeze additional 70MHz from the processor provided the voltage is raised mode and the temperature under peak workload increases.
We can overclock our processor almost to the same frequency using Noctua NH-U12P with one fan at ~1080RPM and 5°C lower temperature than with the Tuniq cooler. And if you add another fan with the same rotation speed to the Noctua solution, the temperature of the hottest cores will drop another 3°C, although the CPU overclocking potential will only improve by 24MHz. Moreover, with both fans set at ~1380RPM the processor frequency will not grow any further. It may be the cooler heatsink that exhausts its potential (there are only 4 heatpipes and the gaps between the heatsink plates are pretty big), so increasing the fan rotation speed doesn’t have any effect any more.
Thermaltake Big Typhoon 120 VX once again proved superior in our tests and totally worth every penny you pay for it. If it only had better retention that would hold its base securely on top of the processor heat-spreader without bending the mainboard PCB then we could definitely work on polishing off its base and win another 3-4°C. Hopefully, the next modification, Big Typhoon 14 will be free from this unpleasant drawback.
The leader of our today’s test session is Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme. No other cooler could cope with a quad-core CPU overclocked to 4073MHz at 1.6125V Vcore. Note that Ultra-120 eXtreme won this race with only one quiet fan onboard.
We measured the level of noise generated by our today’s testing participants from a 3cm, 1m and 3m distance. The results are given on the diagram below:
I would like to add that from my subjective standpoint starting with 34.5dBA (1m) and up the noise generated by the cooler fans can no longer be considered comfortable and past ~36.5dBA you will hardly be able t bear this noise for a long time.
Of all our today’s testing participants there is only one cooler that will hardly satisfy any of you: Zalman CNPS7500-Cu LED, as it failed to demonstrate any remarkable cooling efficiency. However, it will certainly find its way into compact system cases, although overclocking will hardly be of primary importance or will not be possible at all in this case. Tuniq Tower 120-LBF, Noctua NH-U12P and Thermaltake Big Typhoon 120 VX showed very similar results. Noctua cooler can provide higher maximum cooling efficiency and offers more flexibility, however it is about 50% more expensive than Tuniq or Thermaltake coolers. As for the drawbacks, Big Typhoon 120 VX doesn’t get pressed against the processor heat-spreader tightly enough and requires you to open the system case every time you need to adjust the fan rotation speed.
All three coolers look very decent on a new quad-core processor even against the background of Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme. The differences in maximum processor frequency are not critical at all. Nevertheless, none of them managed to outperform the Thermalright super cooler in cooling efficiency and acoustics. And as for the price and availability of the cooling solutions, ach overclocker has his own subjective opinion about them. Other than that, I hope this article gave you an idea of where these modified but at the same time relatively old cooling solutions belong in the current hierarchy and how they compare against the today’s undefeated performance leader.