Tuniq Tower 120: Air Cooling to the Max
by Wesley Fink on January 15, 2007 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Noise
Improved cooling and higher overclocks often come with additional noise. For some users the goal is maximum stable overclock, and they will live with the inconvenience of a louder system. For others silence is the most important factor, and these users will forgo overclocking if this increases system noise levels.Fortunately, both the stock Intel retail HSF and the Tuniq Tower 120 pay serious attention to the noise factor. Intel uses a low speed 80mm fan that runs at about 1100 RPM under normal operating conditions. The Tuniq Tower 120 uses a massive 120mm 9-blade fan that moves a lot of air and that can be manually adjusted between 1000 and 2100 RPM.
It should be pointed out that the fan speeds reported by NVIDIA Monitor are double the actual fan speeds. Fan speeds were measured and confirmed with the well-known SpeedFan, which is a free download. SpeedFan confirmed the adjustment range of the Tuniq Tower 120 to be 1000 RPM to 2100 RPM, which is just a bit better than the specified 1000 to 2000 RPM.
In looking at noise measurements, the test environment was first considered. The noise floor in the test room, with all computers and fans off, is 36.4dB. There are also virtually no power supplies that do not have a fan. While Zalman and perhaps others make expensive fanless PSUs, we are not aware of one that is larger than 500W, or that would be used for seriously overclocking a system. With that in mind the noise level of the system with all fans turned off except the power supply was measured. The power supply used for the cooling test bed was the OCZ PowerStream 520, which is one of the quieter high performance power supplies. The noise level of the power supply was 38.3dB from 24" (61cm) and 47dB from 6" (152mm).
Measured noise levels in this chart should be considered worst case. Measurements were taken from an open side of a mid tower case 6" from the open HSF and 24" from the open HSF. Real world would be a completely closed case with a further reduction in noise.
The Intel retail HSF and the Tuniq Tower 120 at the 1000RPM setting were below the system noise floor at all tested speeds. That means they produced noise levels that were below the noise already produced by the quiet OCZ 520w power supply.
As already pointed out the Tuniq Tower 120 comes with a rheostat for adjusting fan speed from 1000 to 2100 RPM. At 1000 RPM the Tuniq can be considered as good as silent, but noise does go up as fan speed is manually increased. At the highest speed from 24" away the Tuniq measured 48dB compared to the system "floor" of 38.3dB. At a 6" distance the difference was 54dB to 47dB. Keep in mind that the dB scale is logarithmic and not linear, so a 3dB increase represents a doubling of sound power. Some studies suggest that while the human ear can discern small differences in sound level, the human ear perceives a doubling of loudness at a 10dB increase. Others quote double the sound level as 6db. In either case the increased noise of the Tuniq at 2100 RPM will definitely be noticeable to almost any user.
In most cases the 1000 RPM setting of the Tuniq Tower 120 will cool very adequately and sat very low noise levels. We found no difference in cooling with 1000 or 2100 RPM up to 3.73GHz. Above this point the higher 2100 speed cooled about 2C to 5C cooler than the 1000 low-speed setting. The system still topped out at 3.9GHz on low speed, but at a bit higher temperatures. This, of course, is with the Core 2 Duo processor, which runs rather cool. Your results with other CPUs will vary from this.
In the end whether you choose silence or maximum cooling with a bit more noise is up to you. With the adjustable fan speed you can dial in what is tolerable to you - from silence to some noise but a bit better cooling. It is worth mentioning that noise remained below the system noise floor until a speed of about 1600 RPM was reached. Above that speed noise increased rapidly.
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monsoon - Monday, January 15, 2007 - link
Hello,I was a little surprised not tp see comparison benchmarks to a TUNIQ + E4300. I would love to see how much higher can the little buddy be pushed to a overclock with a TUNIQ.
Also, how comes lower clocked CPUs are those that can get higher ? ( sorry, I'm a newbie to PC modding )
THANKS
Great Googly Moogly - Monday, January 15, 2007 - link
Do not use the word "silent"; use "quiet". Also, you'd do better if you at least gave some impressions of the quality of noise, as that is just as, if not more, important.The rest is good.
RobbieMc - Monday, January 15, 2007 - link
I recently purchased a Scythe Ninja to cool a QX6700. I was considering purchasing the Tuniq Tower, or the Ninja, and was told the ninja had slightly better cooling. After installing it (properly), I found that the Ninja ran nearly 30 degrees F hotter than the stock cooling. I was under the impression that the Ninja and the Tuniq Tower had about the same performance, but based on this review, if my data is right, then the Tuniq would be much better. I'm wondering what the weak link is with the ninja. Is it really possible that the stock cooling is substantially better? Do you all suspect I had an improper installation (I am convinced I did everything properly), is the Tuniq better than the Ninja, are my results at all normal? Thanks.xsilver - Monday, January 15, 2007 - link
http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticle&nu...">http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getart...ber=2&am...a non obvious installation problem is too much thermal grease
either that or malfunctioning probes?
RobbieMc - Monday, January 15, 2007 - link
The first time installing, I did put on WAY too much thermal grease, but I soon realized this was bad, and reinstalled it with a very thin layer of Arctic Silver 5 grease. I don't think the probes are bad either because the temperature readings I'm getting are within 1-2 degrees of Anandtech's stock cooler temperatures (131F under load).Shark Tek - Monday, January 15, 2007 - link
Those stock temps are quite high if I compare them to my 939 AMD 4400+ X2 setup. At 2.8GHz I run 35'C idle and 50'C load.Which is the maximum or limit temp that a Core Duo 2 can stand in such way that it will work flawlessly? I mean, in which point you need to worry about temperature?
Wesley Fink - Monday, January 15, 2007 - link
How are you measuring temperatures? Most motherboards are notoriously inaccurate in CPU temp measurements.Zaitsev - Monday, January 15, 2007 - link
Great review, Wesley. I'm so happy that Anandtech is finally testing cooling solutions again. It would be nice if you could comment on the weight of the heavier coolers in the next article, since that is a common complaint about heatsinks like the tuniq tower or infinity. Look forward to the rest of the series.mobutu - Monday, January 15, 2007 - link
I suggest that Anandtech take a look at http://www.silentpcreview.com/">http://www.silentpcreview.com/ and learn how to do a "noise" test. If 34db is quiet then how about 22-25db? Definitevly 34db is LOUD.Otherwise pretty good review, but to compare aplle with aplle then you should test at least Thermalright Ultra 120 and Scythe Ninja (not to mention similar solutions from zalman, thermaltake and the others).
Cheers!
Wesley Fink - Monday, January 15, 2007 - link
We are very aware of some of the excellent "noise level" testing done by Silent PC. The information is very useful for those who are looking for the lowest possible noise.However, all our benchmarking tries to factor in the "real world" where users are operating their computers. The real world in this case is a "subjectively" very quiet 520W OCZ Power Supply at a noise floor of 38.3db and our test room at 36.3 db with all computers and fans turned off. To mainteain noise in the mid-30's we have to leave off all other computers, ac, and heat in the lab during our sound measurements. At those db levels, performance at 24db is interesting, but it doesn't tell us much about the noise of a cooler in a working computer in our test room.