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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kilkennycat - Monday, January 15, 2007 - link
The Tuniq Tower 120 weighs 798grams WITHOUT the fan. Both AMD and intel spec ~ 450g maximum and the first-class coolers in this class, the radial design such as the Zalman 9500 and the very similar new Asus radial design endeavor to minimize the weight while maximizing the cooling. The 9500 is ~ 475 grams and the Asus is ~ 610 grams ( both including the fan). Also, the center of gravity of this cooler is much higher off the motherboard than either of the coolers mentioned, especially when the fan is installed. The only way such a cooler can be used safely if the PC is to be transported anywhere after installation... eg to a LAN party or even moving between rooms... is to extend the mounting points of the cooler directly to the PC case, so that the case becomes the prime resistance against any physical strains on the cooler. Otherwise, torsion on the motherboard in the event of any shock to the cooler parallel to the plane of the motherboard is likely to compromise the integrity of the motherboard any one of a number of really nasty ways .... rupture ball-grid array solder joints, rupture circuit-board vias due to layer separation, pop the solder connections of surface mount components, cause hair-line cracks in rigid components such as surface-mount resistors and capacitors. Such failures almost invariably show up as functional intermittents and impossible to track down. I have personally witnessed similar failures caused by poor mechanical designs involving large unsupported components on professional electronic gear when subjected to standard shock tests.Jedi2155 - Monday, January 15, 2007 - link
I've had this installed in my system and i've already moved it about 3-5 times (Lan parties). I've had no issues so far. It seems stable enough.btwango - Monday, January 15, 2007 - link
798grams? without fan!! i don't think i want that much mass hanging off my mobo.plewis00 - Monday, January 15, 2007 - link
The temperature graphs are a bit funny. You give STOCK, 14 x 266 and then 14 x 1095 and 1114 (which I'm guessing are quad-pumped figures instead). Also maybe it was me but I couldn't figure out if your temperature figures were with the Tuniq running at full or minimum speed, I presume the former.It's a great bit of cooling but given I'm working in a mATX case, I'll never have the fun of trying this kit out.
Googer - Monday, January 15, 2007 - link
Did you forget to add Peltier to the list of cooling options?
Wesley Fink - Monday, January 15, 2007 - link
Peltier, or thermoelectric cooling and heating, operates on the same principal as phase change, but the way cooling is actually accomplished is somewhat different. We added Peltier to our list of the various cooling solutions.DigitalFreak - Monday, January 15, 2007 - link
I want to see the temps with just someone blowing on the heat spreader!Gigahertz19 - Monday, January 15, 2007 - link
I purchased the new Thermaltake Typhoon VX for my Core 2 rig and love it. I have it turned on to the lowest setting and you can't even hear it. Only thing I don't like is the knob to adjust the fan speed is on the HSF so you have to open up your case to adjust it, they should have provided a PCI slot like the Tuniq to adjust fan speed.I read in some review the Typhoon VX is the best, I have the linked saved on my laptop but it comapared the VX to a whole bunch of the air cooling solutions and it performed at the very top. I don't think the review included the Tuniq Tower 120 yet.
Zalman 9700 vs Thermaltake Typhoon VX vs Tuniq Tower 120 for the next review!!! We would truly know what's best!
sadsteve - Monday, January 15, 2007 - link
Hi, very nice review.I was wondering if you monitored the PWMIC and chipset temperatures too. I had a Sonic Tower (another 'vertical fan' HSF) which cooled my processor very well, but my PWMIC and chipset temperatures were quiet high. I switched to a Big Typhoon where the fan blows down on the motherboard. I had pretty much the same CPU temperatures (actually better) but my PWMIC and chipset temperatures dropped 15-20 degrees C. I was able to remove the chipset HSF and replace it with a passive heatsink and still had lower temperatures on the chipset (minus the high pitched fan noise!).
Keep up the good work. I check your site at least once a day (yes, weekends too!).
Thank you.
Wesley Fink - Monday, January 15, 2007 - link
We did not monitor chipset temperatures, but you make a very good point. Our EVGA 680i board uses active cooling on the northbridge. Frankly that 680i fan is so loud we needed to turn it off for all noise measurements. It is only needeed for overclocking, fortunately. The 680i is fine with passive cooling at stock speeds.