SPCR likely to review the TT SonicTower and the BigTyphoon??

[mjw21a]

Does anyone know whether SPCR is likely to be convinced to review these two heatsinks. I haven't come across a review that says anything bad about them yet, but the only two sites a really trust with heat sink reviews are Overclockers.com and SPCR.

The BigTyphoon is only meant to output 16dBa and perform similarly to the Thermalright SI-97. The SonicTower is meant to perform even better.

Perhaps if we were to poll who'd like to see a review they might request these from ThermalTake. Anyways, here it is.

[mathias]

Tsk tsk tsk, yet another "SPCR should review..." thread.

http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=6134

And SPCR doesn't ignore thermalfake nearly as much as TT ignores backpressure.

[mjw21a]

Tsk tsk tsk, yet another "SPCR should review..." thread.

http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=6134

Lol. Can't trust reviews from anyone else though can I???

[Tibors]

There is a thread somewhere on the forums about the Tt SonicTower. Between all the remarks of the stupid Tt bashing lemmings in that thread, there are some people who point out the obvious design flaws in it's design.

• High density thin fin - This is not smart for a passive cooler, as it is too restrictive for airflow.
• The weight and size of the cooler and thus high torque on the mobo.
• The position of the optional fan i.r.t. the two towers, makes it only effective on one tower.

[mathias]

Lighten up. Maybe you'd have a bit less of a problem with TT bashing if we also bashed some other companies similarly? We really should bash vantec more, they also make tons of claims about making quiet products but really don't give half a shit about making anything of theirs quiet.

[Rusty075]

Does anyone know whether SPCR is likely to be convinced to review these two heatsinks.

We're not the ones who need convincing. Thermaltake has always been less than willing to send us samples. They may be reluctant to send samples for the exact same reason you want us to review their stuff.

[Tibors]

Maybe you'd have a bit less of a problem with TT bashing if we also bashed some other companies similarly?

If more companies got bashed in the way Tt gets bashed, then I'd leave SPCR. Even SilenX gets a better treatment than Tt on these forums. SPCR is a great place because there are so many smart and well mannered people here. When a product is not good, it normally gets burned down with arguments. But as soon as the name of Tt is mentioned a lot of people revert to the lemming behaviour I can't stand.

[mjw21a]

Altogether likely. I'd still like to see a review though.....

As for the high density thin fins, I don't think this will be such an issue as the fins don't go all that deep. Air doesn't really have to penetrate very far to get through. The whole idea of their BigTyphoon from what I can see is simply a copy of Thermalrights SI-97, except with 6 heat pipes instead of 2 and more fins. This sounds promising to me.

The SonicTower I don't have too mcuh faith in, but the argument of only one tower being cooled doesn't hold water with me. Since the fan is positioned between the two towers, it has to suck air through the first tower in order to cool the second. What I can accept is that since the air has already passed through the first tower, the second tower will not be able to pass as much heat off as the air it will be recieving is already warmer.

I'm curious to see how these things would work with a truly quiet fan, say a papst or somethign similar.....

As for TT bashing, I can't say it isn't warranted. I'd just prefer that people look at the merits of individual products rather than the company that makes them. Too many people are ready to discredit TT products when there still isn't any good evidence of whether one of their products is any good or not.

P.s. I hate lemmings. The game was good in its day, but when you see that kind of unthinking behaviour in actual people, well, they should just be mercifully put to sleep....

[tay]

Personally, they get flogged for :
- fantasy specs
- BLING
- copycat?

I'm a proud lemming

[Tibors]

Since the fan is positioned between the two towers, ...

The flash animation on the Tt site shows the fan "outside" one tower, not in between two towers. Product page. You might be able to construct something for a fan in between, but ....

As for the high density thin fins, I don't think this will be such an issue as the fins don't go all that deep.

I have an Arctic-Cooling Freezer. Looking at pictures the fins from the Freezer are about equally spaced or maybe a little wider apart. Most air the fan blows between the fins comes out of the side of this tower shaped cooler. Hardly any air gets straight through. And this is with forced airflow. Hoping convection or a case fan sucking at a over an inch away moves much air through it is just wishfull thinking IMHO.

[mathias]

Even SilenX gets a better treatment than Tt on these forums.

Well sorry, you might live where nexus is centered, but all those people in australia need a supplier of quiet fans. Silenx at least is somewhat usefull to people. Or maybe it's just not funny because it's so deploreable. That's probably also the case with PCCooler.

I've haven't heard anything about anyone actually getting any of the zalman knockoffs, even though some people seemed to like the ones that came with Silenx fans. I think even if they are good, no one wants to mention them because there would be people angrily against them. The Thermaltake fanless VGA cooler, on the other hand, has had possitive responses. And if Thermaltake was to distribute yate loon fans, I'm sure no one would mind.

When a product is not good, it normally gets burned down with arguments. But as soon as the name of Tt is mentioned a lot of people revert to the lemming behaviour I can't stand.

Thermaltake products also get shot down with plenty of arguments in between the mocking laughter.

The whole idea of their BigTyphoon from what I can see is simply a copy of Thermalrights SI-97, except with 6 heat pipes instead of 2 and more fins. This sounds promising to me.

You're forgetting the greatly increased weight (or you're implying it under more fins, but it is a seperate problem). This tendancy towards producing dangerous heavy products is another problem with thermalltake.

[mjw21a]

Even SilenX gets a better treatment than Tt on these forums.

Well sorry, you might live where nexus is centered, but all those people in australia need a supplier of quiet fans. Silenx at least is somewhat usefull to people. Or maybe it's just not funny because it's so deploreable. That's probably also the case with PCCooler.

I've haven't heard anything about anyone actually getting any of the zalman knockoffs, even though some people seemed to like the ones that came with Silenx fans. I think even if they are good, no one wants to mention them because there would be people angrily against them. The Thermaltake fanless VGA cooler, on the other hand, has had possitive responses. And if Thermaltake was to distribute yate loon fans, I'm sure no one would mind.

Yeah, you're right. There's no decent silent gear here in Australia. the other problem is that our lower valued currency makes many products too expensive to use here in Australia.

When a product is not good, it normally gets burned down with arguments. But as soon as the name of Tt is mentioned a lot of people revert to the lemming behaviour I can't stand.

Thermaltake products also get shot down with plenty of arguments in between the mocking laughter.[/quote]

I would rather go off a decent product review from the likes of SPCR than theories. It's true that the product might perform badly. It's also true that it might perform well. I can't really tell without a review. ThermalTake have made good products in the past. The PIPE101 is an example, but only if you don't care about noise.

I changed to my Zalman CNPS7000B-Cu from one of these. Even though I had to decrease my overclock by 200MHz the tradeoff was a huge noise reduction. I think it was worth it.

You're forgetting the greatly increased weight (or you're implying it under more fins, but it is a seperate problem). This tendancy towards producing dangerous heavy products is another problem with thermalltake.

I can't argue that now can I?

[Webfire]

Well most of the time Tt gets bashed on our forum in Germany too, but a new socket A cooler roundup proved us wrong. The Thermaltake coolers aren't so bad.
Here is the review (german):
http://www.silenthardware.de/reviews/cp ... inleitung/

On the BigTyphoon Tt even used a Yate Loon D12SL-12.

[JanW]

There is a bit about K7 heatsinks including the Sonic Tower and the BigTyphoon at silenthardware.de: here. Even if you don't understand german, the pictures and tables should give you some info. The table on the first page is weight of the tested heatsinks in gram. The table summarizing the temperature measurements at the end displays the CPU diode temperature in degrees C.

The merit of this article is that they use the sonic tower with a Nexus 120mm fan placed in-between the two towers, at 12V and at 5V. The problem (and the reason I don't want to call this a review) is that their methodology is very poor. No calibrated sensors, no ambient temperature reading, different heatsinks tested with different fans and consequently at different flow rates (which are unspecified, unless you go and dig out the spec's of the fans from somewhere else), no noise measurements, and only very vague descriptions of noise...
Their reference is the Aerocool HT101, the CNPS7000 is not included in the review. And their ranking of the Aerocool wrt to the SI-97 seems to contradict what other reviews have found.

EDIT: don't know how I missed your post, Webfire .

EDIT II: I should add that the temperatures are obtained inside a CS-601 case without case fan (IIRC, the place of the usual exhaust fan is just left open). Obviously, the tower heatsinks have a huge advantage here, as they can directly exhaust the hot air (so they do double duty as exhaust fans). While I can understand this testing methodology from a silencing point of view, not citing the temperature of the air the HS takes in means that this data is pretty much useless if you want to know how the heatsinks will perform in a different environment.

[JanW]

Tsk tsk tsk, yet another "SPCR should review..." thread.

Maybe the question should be rephrased as "Given a sample, should SPCR review...". Because procuring a sample is only one step. After that, SPCR reviewers still need to invest a lot of energy into getting the review done and written up. So I don't think a poll trying to find out how interested readers would be in such a review is a bad thing, with the understanding that SPCR decides what gets reviewed, not us. Now, I don't know how representative the results would be. Many people not interested will simply not look at the thread. Personally I have a hard time answering the poll, because I'm not at all interested in a review of the BigTyphoon with "HighDensityFins", but I would be interested in a review of the Sonic Tower (which spaces fins 1.8mm apart, contrary to what was suggested earlier). Does this qualify for one "yes" and one "no" vote?

[mathias]

On the BigTyphoon Tt even used a Yate Loon D12SL-12.

Well, at least we might be able to get some of those fans of overclockers who will probably get good results from swapping that fan for a stronger one.

[mjw21a]

Tsk tsk tsk, yet another "SPCR should review..." thread.

Maybe the question should be rephrased as "Given a sample, should SPCR review...". Because procuring a sample is only one step. After that, SPCR reviewers still need to invest a lot of energy into getting the review done and written up. So I don't think a poll trying to find out how interested readers would be in such a review is a bad thing, with the understanding that SPCR decides what gets reviewed, not us. Now, I don't know how representative the results would be. Many people not interested will simply not look at the thread. Personally I have a hard time answering the poll, because I'm not at all interested in a review of the BigTyphoon with "HighDensityFins", but I would be interested in a review of the Sonic Tower (which spaces fins 1.8mm apart, contrary to what was suggested earlier). Does this qualify for one "yes" and one "no" vote?

Think of it as a yes or no for either/or. Yes if you want even one of them reviewed.

On the BigTyphoon Tt even used a Yate Loon D12SL-12.

Well, at least we might be able to get some of those fans of overclockers who will probably get good results from swapping that fan for a stronger one.

I am an overclocker. I just prefer silence to noise. If I can find a heatsink that I can actually get my hands on here in Australia, which is around the same noise level as the Zalman CNPS7000B-CU at full bore and performs better, I'll buy it.

I had to drop my overclock from 2.4GHz at 2V to 2.2GHz at 1.85V to go from my old TT PIPE101 + 80CFM fan to the Zalman CNPS7000B-Cu. But at least I can't hear my computer now. Thats important to me as it's about 2 feet from my bed and runs 24/7.

Something like the BigTyphoon sounds like it'll be just as quiet bust with SI-97 performance levels. That's why I'm interested. My overclock goes back up, thereby increasing my productivity with folding@home.

[MikeC]

Here's a basic summary of those tall heatpipe HS with across-the-board airflow.

1) They are essentially ALL THE SAME!!! There are usually 2 U-shaped heatpipes that are mated at the center to an aluminum base. Fins of aluminum of copper with 4 holes are press-fitted down the heatpipes.

2) What differs? Details of implementation: Size, height, weight, fin spacing... and most importantly, MOUNTING MECHANISM. TTs are generally oversized -- they tend to be too tall and too heavy for general safety. Not that they will break every motherboard, but the risk is generally higher. Fin spacing is generally too tight for good cooling with low airflow. The mounting mechanism with these types of HS is where TT seems to fall flat on its face. It's terrible; through-the-board bolt mounting with NO indicator of when it is tight enough.

I am sure they are probably decent performers. All of these types of HS tend to be pretty good. If you want to go for it, then go for it. But we have enough HS to keep us busy without looking for obviously flawed products. If one of these TTs have a good moutning system, then OK, we'll take a look, but otherwise, we're really not that interested.

[mjw21a]

Here's a basic summary of those tall heatpipe HS with across-the-board airflow.

1) They are essentially ALL THE SAME!!! There are usually 2 U-shaped heatpipes that are mated at the center to an aluminum base. Fins of aluminum of copper with 4 holes are press-fitted down the heatpipes.

2) What differs? Details of implementation: Size, height, weight, fin spacing... and most importantly, MOUNTING MECHANISM. TTs are generally oversized -- they tend to be too tall and too heavy for general safety. Not that they will break every motherboard, but the risk is generally higher. Fin spacing is generally too tight for good cooling with low airflow. The mounting mechanism with these types of HS is where TT seems to fall flat on its face. It's terrible; through-the-board bolt mounting with NO indicator of when it is tight enough.

I am sure they are probably decent performers. All of these types of HS tend to be pretty good. If you want to go for it, then go for it. But we have enough HS to keep us busy without looking for obviously flawed products. If one of these TTs have a good moutning system, then OK, we'll take a look, but otherwise, we're really not that interested.

Makes sense, unfortunately.

[Tibors]

... the Sonic Tower (which spaces fins 1.8mm apart, contrary to what was suggested earlier).

Have a look at the Tt product page I linked above. Tt calls it "high density thin fins" themselves. I took a ruler to my AC Freezer to measure its fin spacing. 79mm for 40 fins and 39 gaps, fin thickness ~0.2mm, so fin spacing ~1.8mm. So my comparison of the fin spacing of the AC Freezer and the Tt SonicTower was fairly accurate.

[MikeC]

BTW, in case you didn't notice, we just posted this Freezer 4 review.

[mathias]

I am an overclocker. I just prefer silence to noise. If I can find a heatsink that I can actually get my hands on here in Australia, which is around the same noise level as the Zalman CNPS7000B-CU at full bore and performs better, I'll buy it.

I had to drop my overclock from 2.4GHz at 2V to 2.2GHz at 1.85V to go from my old TT PIPE101 + 80CFM fan to the Zalman CNPS7000B-Cu. But at least I can't hear my computer now. Thats important to me as it's about 2 feet from my bed and runs 24/7.

Something like the BigTyphoon sounds like it'll be just as quiet bust with SI-97 performance levels. That's why I'm interested. My overclock goes back up, thereby increasing my productivity with folding@home.

By overclockers, I mean those who are overclockers primarily. I think that because of the tigthly packed fins, this thing will be much more effective with a higher speed fan, especially one that is thicker too.

[mjw21a]

I am an overclocker. I just prefer silence to noise. If I can find a heatsink that I can actually get my hands on here in Australia, which is around the same noise level as the Zalman CNPS7000B-CU at full bore and performs better, I'll buy it.

I had to drop my overclock from 2.4GHz at 2V to 2.2GHz at 1.85V to go from my old TT PIPE101 + 80CFM fan to the Zalman CNPS7000B-Cu. But at least I can't hear my computer now. Thats important to me as it's about 2 feet from my bed and runs 24/7.

Something like the BigTyphoon sounds like it'll be just as quiet bust with SI-97 performance levels. That's why I'm interested. My overclock goes back up, thereby increasing my productivity with folding@home.

By overclockers, I mean those who are overclockers primarily. I think that because of the tigthly packed fins, this thing will be much more effective with a higher speed fan, especially one that is thicker too.

I suspect they'd simply go with a Thermalright XP-120. I do miss my old 55% overclock with my 2500+ though..... I want to do it in silence.....

[Oliver]

SonicTower Seems to do quite well:
http://www.tweakers4u.de/artikel/therma ... htm?page=2

To help you read the chart, the german word "seite" means side.
And the word "ohne" means none. So no case fan.

It is interesting to look at their pictures of it mounted on Intel processor where the fan does not blow the air straight out the back, so the result could maybe be more interesting on those boards that allow that configuation of blowing the fan out the back.

They have other detailed reviews of the Thermaltake Fanless 103 vs the Scythe where the 103 has a fan rubberbanded directly to the blue fins and blowing the air out the case.
It is remarkable that a small 3/4 gap between a case mounted fan and the radiators of the fanless, versus the fan directly mounted to the radiators, can make such a huge difference. It is a similar effect as seen with the non-sandwiched side mounting on the Sonic Tower of a fan running at 5volts not being able to draw much air past the far tower.
http://www.tweakers4u.de/artikel/therma ... 4,,936.htm
on page 3, well they look at undervolting
http://www.tweakers4u.de/artikel/therma ... htm?page=3



The 103 article at:
http://www.techfreaks.org/reviews/fanless103.shtml
shows the fan mounted maybe 3/4 of an inch away from the blue 103 back fins. That small distance apparently makes a huge difference according to the tweakers4u.de articles.

Seems like it is best to put fan in between towers, on the SonicTower
However in the
http://www.silenthardware.de/reviews/cp ... index.html
you will notice that they pried off the top Al fin and turned it around
180 degrees, so the mount holes would exist to mount fan for center position.

I believe the review at :
http://www.techniz.co.uk/modules.php?na ... 199&page=7
mounted the fan to the side of one tower and not sandwiched.
Therefore , if you compare it to the xp120 review they did there (I forgot, they might have mounted that on a different processor, so you better check. The xp120 seemed to perform better. But what I am saying, that result is in line with the tweaker4u results that are not sandwiched. Had they sandwiched the fan on the SonicTower at tecniz.co.uk, I think the result they report would have been significantly different.


Finally, I think a very intersting thing that must be considered when designing system with these is passive cooling of the northbridge. With the xp120, I think the fan blows stray air over the northbridge heatsink.
But this article with a fanless 103 shows high passive northbridge temps in that particular case airflow design:
One valid issue I saw in one review was the
http://www.thetechlounge.com/review.php ... ess&page=3


Is there any way to rotate a fanless103 90 degrees so it will mounta on a
Asus A8n-sli and the radiators will be postioned towards the back fan?
Is the base not square?
Or is it square, and so it can be rotated within the platic base, but a different metal spring clip is needed because the copper heatpipes get in the way if the heatsink is turned 90 from intended design?

Thanks.

PS. How much stray air does the memory rely on to come off the heatsink fan to stay cool?

[JanW]

... the Sonic Tower (which spaces fins 1.8mm apart, contrary to what was suggested earlier).

Have a look at the Tt product page I linked above. Tt calls it "high density thin fins" themselves. I took a ruler to my AC Freezer to measure its fin spacing. 79mm for 40 fins and 39 gaps, fin thickness ~0.2mm, so fin spacing ~1.8mm. So my comparison of the fin spacing of the AC Freezer and the Tt SonicTower was fairly accurate.

Yes, I didn't check Tt's pages to see what they call it. But your implication was that fins are too tightly spaced and thus too restrictive for airflow on the sonic tower. My point was that that was not the case, as fin spacing is comparable to the XP-90 and SI-97, which no one would accuse of poor low-flow cooling potential just by looking at the design.

[mjw21a]

The problem we have here is that yes, there's a number of reviews out. But no, none of these reviews are from particularly reputable hardware review sites and should therefore probably be disregarded.

I hope at some point someone on my short list of trusted review sites reviews these.

[Tibors]

They are "disappearing" way up, so I'll repeat my original points again.

High density thin fin - This is not smart for a passive cooler, as it is too restrictive for airflow.

I have an Arctic-Cooling Freezer. Looking at pictures the fins from the Freezer are about equally spaced or maybe a little wider apart. Most air the fan blows between the fins comes out of the side of this tower shaped cooler. Hardly any air gets straight through. And this is with forced airflow. Hoping convection or a case fan sucking at a over an inch away moves much air through it is just wishfull thinking IMHO.

Now I didn't see anybody claim an XP-90 can cool a P4 (even a Northwood) passively. The only working setup (that I have seen here) with an XP-120 without fan on the heatsink, was Ed's setup where all the intake air was forced along the heatsink. That's not really passive either.

Now for the SI-97. Resistence to airflow is directly related to the length the air has to travel through the narrow space. The heatsink "thickness" of the SI-97 is about the same as a fan, ~25mm. The heatsink "thickness" of the SonicTower is about twice that of a fan, ~50mm. (Looking at the picture of the Nexus in between the towers at silenthardware.de). And I am being friendly with this, because depending on the socket orientation the air has to move either twice through this or once along the whole length, ~120mm. The heatsink "thickness" of the Freezer is ~70mm. Now combining my experience about the airflow through the Freezer, with the fact that people only cool undervolted and underclocked CPU's passively with the SI-97 and I still think my first point is valid.


mjw21a,
Just read the review of the Arctic Cooling Freezer and get one
It's smaller, cheaper and comes with a fan you actually can use (i.e. can't hear inside a decent setup).

[JanW]

I didn't mean to be picking on you, Tibors or start a squabble about phrasings. I'm sorry if I came across that way. My only intention was to clarify that the Sonic Tower is not comparable to the BigTyhpoon-type high density fins. Thermaltakes marketing claims about this being a passive cooler had not been mentioned in the OP (and I admid I didn't pick up on it in your post). I think about it as a heatsink that is to be combined with a low-flow 120mm fan, and as such it has an almost healthy fin spacing.

[stubek]

I am new here, but first hand dont trust thermaltake at all.

I had the Xaser "silent" psu and that damn thing could be heard outside my room with the door closed. In its defense, it masked how loud my stock intel 775 cooler was.

I also had the thermaltake cpu cooler http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDe ... 605&depa=0

that thing sucked. I put it on the mobo 4 times, each time all 4 pins were completely secure. and each time, i started the pc went to BIOS, and saw that the cpu was at 85c+ with no load, just idle, then the computer would shut off due to over temp.

I just through that in the garbage. Sorry for not sending it as s sample.

[Elixer]

Yes. I don't think it's really fair to bash on TT without being able to make a decent comparison between TT and products from other companies. If you have a TT cooler you're not currently using you should see if you can arrange with a spcr reviewer to send it in and have it reviewed.