Maybe you should have another look. Here's the comparison:

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.h ... VzaWFzdA==

The Megahalems edges out the TRUE at stock speeds and falls within error when the CPU is overclocked. On the next page it has a slightly better price/performance ratio as well.

The only comparisons that have the TRUE ahead are when it's paired with faster spinning fans.

Imho, the HR01-plus is still the king of coolers tested at SPCR. It is as good as this new cooler at low RPM, but is lighter, smaller, cheaper, and has better availability .

Here



the TRUE with a 1000 rpm fan is better than a Megahalems with a 1200 rpm fan... and look at the TRUE with a 1300 rpm fan... from this review it seems like the TRUE is much better than the Megahalems with "low" (1000-1300 rpm) speed fans.

The chart you cite is with each heatsink using a different fans. It's not, as hardocp calls it, an apples to apples comparison.

In any case, who cares about a degree or 2? That falls within margin or error for just about every HS test system I've seen.

Well... between the TRUE with a 1300 rpm fan and the Megahalems with a 1200 rpm fan there're about 7 degrees of difference (not so few), for only 100 rpm of difference... so... or that 1200 rpm fan is very low performing, or that 1300 rpm is very high performing, or the TRUE is better than the Megahalems at 1000-1300rpm (but from the SPCR review, the Megahalems should be better at low rpms) or that test is just wrong

The fact that test is Core i7 based could justify this difference between the two reviews?

The problem with the "apple to apple" test is that it uses a high speed fan and not a 1000-1300 rpm fan, so it says nothing about this point.

Maybe. Only just. It's a heat source like any CPU, and it's supposed to be 130W TDP, but we don't know just how much heat it was producing because h-ocp oc'd it. Our Pentium D950 (stepping C1 - 95W TDP) runs a bit cooler. The greater heat of the oc'd i7 920 might have pushed the TRUE120E beyond its most efficient thermal transfer zone when the fan was running slower... then you might see a significant difference.

The real question is whether h-ocp's findings are substantiated by any other review.

Any chance of a Cooler Master V8/10/12 tests?

Yeah, unfortunately I can't find any other Megahalems VS TRUE comparison on overclocked Core i7.

Another CPU coolers roundup http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?o ... itstart=16

Prolimatech Megahalems wins

Xbit Core i7 Super Cooler Roundup

Rumour has it that some former employees at Thermalright decided to go solo, either way; it seems to be a fine heatsink.

With the High Speed Yate for Loonies.... doesn't say anything about the low noise performance. Tbh the Mugen 2 looks better for low noise (cheaper) or HR-01 plus (lighter and smaller).

hey MikeC, nice review !
I just finished testing the Megahalems, my findings are scarcely similar to yours
with very high CFM fan it outperforms the TRUE, at very low CFM it outperforms the TRUE, between those, it's a mix.

This is with Scythe S-FLEX 1200 rpm

[/b]

Anyone had success running an i7 on these without a fan?

This sucker is BIG. I bought two, one for my mATX system and one for my 4U system. It doesn't fit in the 4U case! I fit it on a dual-core celeron, so it's not exactly facing a big challenge, but so far running passive.

It does fit in my mATX case (yay for 120mm fan cases).

(If anyone in the DC area wants the still-sealed one I have, I'd prefer *not* to return it...)

Hmmm, down here, the Megahalem is the same price as the TRUE for 775 and about 20% cheaper than the TRUE for 1366

I am very impressed with the ease of install for this Cooler. I have it currently in an Antec P180 mini case. Installed the MB and attached the Cooler last.

Does the cooler clear the ram in height? I am considering buying this sink, but i will have all 6 ram slots occupied in a MSI Pro-E, so i need the fan to claer the RAM. Anybody have any experience with this?

AtW

Well, to answer my own question, the fans is over the ram-slots, but with standard height ram it clears.

AtW

Who cares? People whose lives and egos depend on temperature graphs, that's who .

Boy1: Hey, my HS is better than your HS!
Boy2: No, it's not!
Boy1: Yes, it is!
Boy2: No, it's not!
Boy1: Is too!
Boy2: Is not!
A few days later...
Boy1: Is too! Check out this [random] review. By a floor-wiping 0.025 degrees! You are rightfully pwnd!

The thermalright used one of thermalright's own fans, which are rebranded S-Flexes.
S-Flexes are some of the best 25mm thick 120mm fans out there.

Chances are the fan Prolimatech sent for testing isn't as good

I just changed from a Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme to a Prolimatech Megahalems. I am rotating the TRUE to another computer.

At both idle and load, my CPU temperatures are 100% exactly the same as they were with the TRUE under the same ambient temperature. This is with a Scythe Slipstream 800 fan fixed at the full 12 volts.

Interestingly, the backplate of the TRUE is the same as the Megahalems. I didn't know this until I had already removed the motherboard. Only minor difference is the TRUE backplate had an additional plastic film on it.

Ease of installation seems to be about the same. The Megahalems is a little better because the backplate is mounted with the thumbscrews first before the heatsink is mounted. It wasn't really so bad on the TRUE, I would loosely mount the spring-loaded screws to hold the backplate in place temporarily before installing the motherboard. The fan mounting is definitely easier on the Megahalems thanks to a better clip design.

I've scoured the web and it seems that Megahalems and IFX-14 change places depending on thermal load, amount of airflow, test setup and probably most of all, margin of error.

Some samples:

http://www.silenthardware.de/2009/07/04 ... gleich/14/

http://www.meisterkuehler.de/content/pr ... e-393.html

http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getart ... rticID=389

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cooler ... html#sect0

http://www.overclock.net/air-cooling/49 ... -high.html

I think more worthwhile considerations are fitting (esp. RAM), price, availability and the mounting mechanism.

I personally dislike coolers that require the whole motherboard be removed every single time one removes the heatsink. I'm not sure about IFX-14, but at least Megahalems does not require mb removal, once the backplate mechanism is in place.

Any chance of actually doing a 2fan test and adding it to the review as you did with the Mugen2???

I realise that people are posting comparisons, but well I trust the methodolgy you guys use.

I'm currently deciding between the Megahalems (great mounting system, good performance, but high cost), the Cogage, and the mugen 2 (less than ideal mounting, good performance, cheap). It's a really tough choice.

Then don't even get me started on what fans to choose!!!
one or two 500rpm - 2000rpm jobbies. or 2*1200rpm fans.

The way I look at it, the cooler has a much longer 'case life' than the processor. In three years, your processor would be worthless whereas the cooler will continue to do just the same job. So I don't mind spending a little bit extra for the cooler.

In any case, TRUE and PMH are selling for basically the same price right now.

Uday

not at all; single threaded performance has pretty much come to a halt; we don't need 8 core CPUs, which is what you'll get in 3-years; we won't see 5ghz CPUs, which is what we need to see performance boosts... so a CPU bought today will last you a while without performance issues;)

The only law I know of for the future of computing is that nobody manages to predict it right

What you are saying is that the processors won't get any faster. Agreed. But the chip densities are continuing to increase in line with Moore's law, which means that more cores will get on to the CPU. The software developers know the challenge and they are currently working on getting software to do things in parallel. So, sooner or later, enough processing will get done to occupy all the available cores, and people will be asking for more.

Your Core i7 may not become worthless in terms of its usefulness. But its monetary value will go down nevertheless. Who will buy 4-cores when they can get 16 on the market?

Now available in the ever-so-trendy ultra-cool-black version with a new trendy name Mega Shadow!

http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=853&p=3

P.S. The performance appears to be exactly the same - it's just that with the cool new name and paint job, you can can pay more for it :)

It might be worth adding now to the end of the article that Rev. C comes with an AM2/AM2+/AM3 mounting kit (with Rev. B it has to be purchased separately).* There is a potential incompatibility between Rev. C and some AM2 motherboards, though, which is explained at http://www.prolimatech.com/en/products/ ... 172&page=1.

* See Details at http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... _-35242008