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TESTING
Before any thermal testing, we took some basic physical measurements.
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Zalman CNPS10X Extreme:
Approximate Physical Measurements
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Weight
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820 g
950 g with fan
1020 g with fan and topside mounting hardware |
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Fin thickness
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0.42 mm |
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Fin spacing
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1.50 mm |
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Vertical Clearance
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43 mm (measured from the
motherboard PCB to the heatsink's bottom fin) |
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Horizontal Overhang
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N/A (measured from the
edge of the heatsink to the top edge of our test motherboard's PCB) |
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Comparison: Approximate Fin Thickness & Spacing
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Heatsink
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Fin Thickness
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Fin Spacing
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Scythe Ninja 2
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0.39 mm
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3.68 mm
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Thermalright HR-01 Plus
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0.45 mm
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3.15 mm
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Noctua NH-U12P
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0.44 mm
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2.63 mm
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Thermolab Baram
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0.44 mm
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2.52 mm
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Prolimatech Megahalems
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0.50 mm
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2.00 mm
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Xigmatek HDT-S1283
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0.33 mm
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1.96 mm
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Zerotherm Zen FZ120
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0.37 mm
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1.80 mm
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Zalman CNPS10X Extreme
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0.42 mm
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1.50 mm
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Thermalright Ultra-120
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0.45 mm
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1.42 mm
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Testing was done according to our
unique heatsink testing methodology, and the included fan was profiled
using our standard fan testing
methodology. A quick summary of the components, tools, and procedures
follows below.
Key Components in Heatsink Test Platform
- Intel
Pentium D 950 Presler core. TDP of 130W*; under our test load, it measures
78W including efficiency losses in the VRMs.
- Asus P5Q-EM motherboard. A microATX board with integrated graphics
and short solid-state capacitors around the CPU socket, and a diminutive northbridge heatsink for maximum compatibility.
- Intel X25-M
80GB 2.5" solid-state drive.
- 1GB of Corsair XMS2 DDR2 memory. 2 x 512MB PC2-8500.
- FSP Zen 300W
fanless power supply.
- Arctic Silver
Lumière: Special fast-curing thermal interface material, designed
specifically for test labs.
- Nexus 92 fan (part of our standard testing methodology; used when
possible with heatsinks that fit 92x25mm fans)
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Nexus 120 fan measurements
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Voltage
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Noise
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RPM
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12V
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16 dBA@1m
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1100 RPM
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9V
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13 dBA@1m
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890 RPM
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7V
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12 dBA@1m
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720 RPM
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5V
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11 dBA@1m
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530 RPM
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Measurement and Analysis Tools
- Seasonic
Power Angel for measuring AC power at the wall to ensure that the
heat output remains consistent.
- Custom-built, four-channel variable DC power supply, used to regulate
the fan speed during the test.
- PC-based spectrum analyzer:
SpectraPlus with ACO Pacific mic and M-Audio digital
audio interfaces.
- Anechoic chamber
with ambient level of 11 dBA or lower
- Various other tools for testing fans, as documented in our
standard fan testing methodology.
- SpeedFan, used to monitor the on-chip thermal sensor. This sensor is not
calibrated, so results are not universally applicable.
- CPUBurn
P6, used to stress the CPU heavily, generating more heat than most
real applications. Two instances are used to ensure that both cores are stressed.
- Throttlewatch
2.01, used to monitor the throttling feature of the CPU to determine
when overheating occurs.
Load testing was accomplished using CPUBurn to stress the processor, and the
graph function in SpeedFan was used to make sure that the load temperature was
stable for at least ten minutes. The stock fan was tested at various voltages
to represent a good cross-section of its airflow and noise performance.
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Editor's Note: Pentium D — 130W TDP?
The low 78W (minus VRM losses) drawn by our Pentium D 950 chip has been a curious oddity since we began using it on our heatsink test platform a few years ago. As far as we knew, it was supposed to have a TDP of 130W; we assumed ours was an exceptionally cool sample. Recently, curiosity followed its inevitable course: Web research after identifying the exact details of our Pentium D — model 4, stepping 4, revision C1, 12+16kB/2048kB L1/L2 cache, 'Presler' FSB200x4, XD, VT, EIST. It turns out there were two main versions of the Pentium D. Ours was the last iteration, not surprisingly, the most energy efficient. The C1 rev and stepping identified it on Intel's Processor Spec Finder database as a Presler core with 95W TDP, not the 130W we'd always thought. At less than 78W at full tilt, it still seems like an exceptionally cool running processor.
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