Thermalright SI-120 or TT Big Typhoon for low noise cooling

EsaT · Post by **EsaT** » Sun Aug 13, 2006 6:52 am

Or maybe Zallman 9500.
So which one of these provides best cooling with low noise?

I know tower style coolers would be most efficient with low speed fan but unlike reviewers I intend to use motherboard in normal position inside case and for longer time than tests take so stress/torgue caused to motherboard by long towers doesn't feel so tempting. Also tower coolers with "boxed" airflow going parallel to motherboard and past it wouldn't cool area around CPU socket so easily.

Processor will be Conroe E6600 and maximum overclocking would be what is achievable without big voltage increases so considering that biggest cooling capability shouldn't be needed.

Thermalright's new SI-128 would be apparently very good but its availability is about same as that of honest politicians.

Zalman seems to be very effective with fan at high RPMs but noise level wouldn't be good and at lower RPMs cooling capability apparently drops such amount that Thermalright XP-120 would give equal cooling with less noise and in fact would provide better cooling with same noise.
Also basing to reviews SI-120 seems to work better than XP-120 inside case and also might work considerably better with low speed fan.

Thermaltake Big Typhoon is very similar but its weight is over 2x that of Thermalright (can plain fan add that much weight?), basing to Madshrimps comparisons it shouldn't be any better than SI-120 despite of more and bigger fins... maybe it's that getting advantage from that would require higher speed fan because of extra airflow resistance.

stromgald · Post by **stromgald** » Sun Aug 13, 2006 7:29 am

Personally, I've heard a few good reviews on the TT Big Typhoon, but I really don't trust TT very much. Personally, I'd recommend just getting the SI-128 or XP-120. I think the XP-120 is lighter, but doesn't cool as well as the others. Depending on your processor, it might be enough (it most likely is).

mbetea · Post by **mbetea** » Sun Aug 13, 2006 8:05 am

I know tower style coolers would be most efficient with low speed fan but unlike reviewers I intend to use motherboard in normal position inside case and for longer time than tests take so stress/torgue caused to motherboard by long towers doesn't feel so tempting.

And normal position would be? Vertical perhaps? I'm sure you're the only person in the world that's ever thought of doing that.

I would say stick with the stock hsf, because of the huge potential for damage using heavy aftermarket heatsinks.

EsaT · Post by **EsaT** » Sun Aug 13, 2006 8:11 am

In tests inside case SI-120 has worked quite nicely and better than XP-120
http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getart ... rticID=406

Also difference to SI-128 shouldn't be ground breaking and with fan at lower speed difference gets slightly smaller which would be logical considering more densely packed fins.
http://www.hartware.de/review_597_8.html

EDIT: Found one shop listing SI-128 and shop would have also some other components I'm looking for. (delivery cost for for just HS would be too high from Germany)

So real world cooling capability is definitely much more complicated than plain weight or amount/surface area of fins and such.

With lower weight of Thermalright (<400g) compared to TT (>800g) I'm more inclined getting it.
And I think getting Conroe to produce as much heat as overclocked CPUs in those tests would require some extreme overclocking.
At least any HSF designed to handle fastest processors of very ineffective NetBurst "Sauna stove" (*) architecture is propably more than enough for even heavier Conroe overclocking, after all TDP for 2,93GHz X6800 is 75W while for 2.4GHz E6600 it's 65W.

* I like -20C winter temperatures... but in sauna I prefer +100C.

stromgald wrote:but I really don't trust TT very much.

Well... I happen to remember review of top of the line TT PSU few years back... at low loads efficiency was under 60% and and at higher loads it rose to royally high 66-67%. Now how's that for good first impression of product?

mbetea wrote: I would say stick with the stock hsf, because of the huge potential for damage using heavy aftermarket heatsinks.

You mean coolers like Zalman 7700Cu at >900g which happens to be in current PC?

And I've twice had to move case around and take mobo out of case with it because of changing that damned chipset cooler/fan in Asus A8N SLI.
(No more active chipset HSFs to this house, at least from Asus!)

justblair · Post by **justblair** » Sun Aug 13, 2006 12:05 pm

I use the TT heatsink, and the weight of it doesn't bother me. I has a weight spreader on the back that would appear to do its job quite nicely. In fact I have modified 2 of them making them heavier still. Everything still works just fine.

Its fan can cool even hot processors at 800rpm which is in practical terms silent in operation

The fan with it is very good, although its labelled hong sheng, its basicly comes out the same mould as a yate loon/nexus. The quality of the moulding being slightly better than the nexus sample my brother uses. I've compared it to the Nexus fan. At the same rpm the noise signatures are indescernable to each other.

As for not trusting Thermaltake, no need to. This cooler has been reviewed and comes within a degree of the ninja in tests I have seen, It has been reviewed similarly on several sites. If you live in the UK (prices seem to vary geographically) this cooler can be had for about 2/3 of the price of the Ninja. I paid about 23gbp for mine. Considering the performance of this thing, I call it a bargain.

If I had to criticise it, I would say that its not the prettiest looking in its performance class. The orange and black fan personally is not to my tastes, and the collector plate/spring is functional certainly (It is easy to fit, and flexible in terms of the sockets it supports) though not attractive.

Best thing about it IMO though is you can do this to it....

EsaT · Post by **EsaT** » Sun Aug 13, 2006 1:40 pm

justblair wrote:This cooler has been reviewed and comes within a degree of the ninja in tests I have seen, It has been reviewed similarly on several sites.

Do you have links for those reviews, some sites do tests on table instead of inside case.
Test in Madshrimps with Papst fan gave identical results for both SI-120 and TTBT so in that aspect both should be quite equal choises.

Depending from which (more exactly from how many) shop I decide to order PC components Thermaright SI-128 would be option and it appears to be very good.
(BTW, difference to SI-120 decreases little with low fan speed but its still clearly better)

PS. What mini motherboard that is... one more update and HSF will be bigger than mobo.

justblair · Post by **justblair** » Sun Aug 13, 2006 3:39 pm

I cant remember the links, sorry it was 11 months ago when I was buying. I recall searching on google for heatsink roundups. I looked at quite a lot of reviews before I settled on the typhoon. It was a pragamatic decision of price vs performance. I dare say that quite a few test methodologies were employed across the reviews I read. Age is terrible, at 33 my memory is not as good as it used to be! I shudder to guess what I'll be like at 60.

As for your ps... I'm not sure wether your question was serious.... That mobo is a full atx Asus board! The typhoon is a brute force cooler to say the least. You get a hell of a lot of metal for your cash.

DontMakeMeEatU · Post by **DontMakeMeEatU** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 10:06 am

I intend on getting the Si-128, but should it use a faster fan or slower fan for better cooling?

EsaT · Post by **EsaT** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 11:09 am

DontMakeMeEatU wrote:I intend on getting the Si-128, but should it use a faster fan or slower fan for better cooling?

Basing to this it should work quite well with low speed fan:
http://www.hartware.de/review_597_8.html
(of course high speed fan always rises cooling capability)

IsaacKuo · Post by **IsaacKuo** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 11:21 am

Given the height, weight, and weight distribution of the Big Typhoon, I don't see that it's any better/worse than a tower heatsink (in terms of stress on the motherboard). BTW, the Zalman 9500 is a tower heatsink.

EsaT · Post by **EsaT** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 1:08 pm

IsaacKuo wrote:Given the height, weight, and weight distribution of the Big Typhoon, I don't see that it's any better/worse than a tower heatsink (in terms of stress on the motherboard). BTW, the Zalman 9500 is a tower heatsink.

Zalman is similar to towers but it differs in that aspect that airflow isn't boxed and part of it is able to cool components around CPU socket.

Thermalright is considerably lighter than TT and weight would stay around 550g with fan. And what I checked some of the best towers are ~50% higher which would could make it tight fit after lining case with sound absorption mats.

But I found shop with Thermalright SI-128 and shop even has such nice price and delivery costs that ordering cooler separately from them isn't such expensive and basing to this it's propably best cooler outside towers so propably I'll choose it.
http://www.hartware.de/review_597_8.html
(basing to power rating test fan is Papst 4412 F/2GLL)

While Conroe (even overclocked) would be definitely relatively light load for motherboards designed to handle power requirements of Neturst "Sauna stoves" little cooling for voltage regulation of CPU is always good thing... also part of airflow would cool memories which are nearly under HSF with these.

s_xero · Post by **s_xero** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 2:11 am

For you all who are thinking about the Thermaltake, the differences I have seen in my system when I was switching to the Ninja were something described by the SPCR-review. I had a Papst 4412FGL @5v on it, and ofc tested it on 7,9, and 12 v as well.

I found that it's efficiency ran of very fast on lower speeds, when my fan became quiet. The weird thing was that I ran it at 5v.
Namely, I thought that my X2 4400+ was rated TDP=110Watts, but I got temps of 60~62C with a TriCool on Low near. I began to wonder if the TDP given, wasn't far to high - apparently it did.

My temps with the Ninja FANLESS with a Noctua @ 650 RPM is even below that. It's getting about 55~58C.

These results were given by the AMD CaseMax interpretation in Core Temp while Burning with Orthos.

s_xero · Post by **s_xero** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 2:26 am

[quote]Top-down airflow good for system cooling[/quote]

I partially disagree with Devon here.

Probably it's good for the motherboard-components like VRM's etc.

But the Heated airflow can also heat up the motherboard, it remains to be seen at what speeds (depends on mainboard, layout, other components, fanspeed) the airflow is great enough to cool the motherboard, instead of heating it up.

Towerheat-sinks don't face the problem. Instead, they rely on casefans or good routing of the airflow.

The temps on idle and VGA-load in my 6800GT dropped 5~7C when I switched from the Big Typhoon to the Ninja.
And the spacing between my Ninja-fins and my graphics-card is more then 10cm!!!

aztec · Post by **aztec** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 7:05 am

my vote goes to SI-120 as well, but damned near imossible to find at a decent price.