Viewing page 1 of 4 pages.
1 2 3 4 NextNovember 24, 2007 by Devon
Cooke
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Product
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Gigabyte Volar GH-PSU21-FB
Socket 775 / K8 / AM2 CPU Heatsink
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Manufacturer
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Market Price
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US$35~45 |
Like many other Taiwan-based manufacturers, Gigabyte is fighting stiff competition
and outsourcing by diversifying its offerings. In addition to its motherboards
and other PCB-based cards, Gigabyte has expanded its offerings to encompass
several other markets — including heatsinks. These and several other product categories are the result of Gigabyte's Thermal Division, whose labs in Taiwan were visited by SPCR editor Mike Chin in June 2007.
The Volar is the first heatsink we've seen from Gigabyte, but it's far from
their first. Their web site currently lists eight different heatsinks
plus one in development. The oldest dates from the days of Socket 478,
so clearly the Gigabyte Thermal Division is here to stay.
The
Volar caught our eye because of its highly unconventional design, which
is somewhere between a classic top-down design and the monstrous
high-rise design that dominates the high end market. It borrows from many others — a frameless fan that resembles Arctic Cooling's fans, a tilted
design borrowed from the Scythe Katana, and extruded
aluminum fins that look like they came from the same factory as Intel's
stock heatsinks.
A plastic blister pack shows off the heatsink inside the box.
Like most other heatsinks these days, the Volar is billed as being both cool
and quiet. In support of the quiet claim, Gigabyte includes a simple resistor
grafted into a pass-through cable to drop the fan voltage down from the base
12V. Noise is specified at 23 dBA or 18 dBA with the low-speed cable.
This would be excellent, if it's true.
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| Heatsink, two styles of mounting clips, fan
control cable, some screws, thermal interface, and a small-print
instruction sheet |
The small, single sheet of instructions is well illustrated and easy to follow,
but, as is usual for the tech industry, the text is small and the English poor.
In addition to the installation instructions, the sheet begins with a list of
nine exceptions to Gigabyte's warranty policy. Oddly, neither the length of
the warranty nor warranty terms are mentioned. Apparently, Gigabyte's warranty
policy differs around the world. Item number six — malfunction arising
from casualties — deserves special recognition as the only warranty clause
we've seen that mentions death as a possible reason for a warranty claim. Perhaps
they meant "catastrophes"...
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Gigabyte Volar: Feature
Highlights (from the product web page)
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| Feature & Brief |
Our Comment |
| Universal
design for both LGA775 and AMD AM2/K8 platforms
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Wide
compatibility, though size may be more limiting than
mounting hardware. |
| Copper
base and heat sinks with aluminum fins
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Unusually,
the fins are one piece of extruded aluminum rather than multiple thin
sheets. |
| Angular
conical airflow ensures maximum cooling of MOSFET areas
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The fan is angled down slightly to direct exhaust air towards the CPU
socket.
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| Spiraling
fin design for increased surface volume ventilation
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The
same design as Intel's stock heatsink ... but with heatpipes. |
| Omni-directional
high-conducting heat pipe for maximum dissipation
in any mounted position |
A
prerequisite for any aftermarket heatsink these days. |
| Large 120mm
fan with fan speed control cable
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Control
in a very loose sense; the cable can only drop the fan speed by a
single constant amount. |
| Easy
installation |
Not
tool-free, but there's plenty of room to work around the base. |
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Gigabyte Volar:
Specifications (from the product web page)
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|
Heatsink Dimensions
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122 x 125
x 141 mm (W x L x H) |
| Fan
Dimensions
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120 x 120
x 38mm (L x B x H) |
| Number
of Heatpipes
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3
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| Base Composition
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Copper
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| Fin Material |
Aluminum |
| Rated Voltage |
12 V |
| Rated Current |
0.2 Amp. |
| Fan Speed |
2,000
rpm(default) / 1,500 rpm(low speed) |
| Acoustic |
2,000
rpm, 23dBA (default)
1,500 rpm, 18dBA (with fan speed control cable) |
| Bearing Type |
EBR |
| MTBF |
30,000 h |
| Total Weight |
640 g |
| Supports |
Intel®
CoreTM 2 Extreme Processor Series
Intel® CoreTM 2 Quad Processor Series
Intel® CoreTM 2 Duo Processor Series
Intel® Pentium® Extreme Edition Series
Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor Series (LGA775)
Intel® Pentium® D Processor Series
AMD AM2 Series
AMD AthlonTM FX Series
AMD AthlonTM 64x2 Series
AMD AthlonTM 64 Series
AMD Sempron Series |
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