Scythe Infinity: 5 Heatpipes and Silent 120mm Fan
by Wesley Fink on February 26, 2007 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Noise
For many enthusiasts upgrading cooling the goal is maximum stable overclock, and they will live with the inconvenience of a louder system. For other users silence is the most important factor, and these users will forgo maximum overclocking if this increase system noise levels. In general the Zalman 9500 and 9700 can be considered very quiet, but performance of either cooler is not standout against the competition - at least where noise is concerned.
To test idle and load noise levels, a Zalman Fan Mate 2 fan controller was used to dial in the lowest and highest fan speeds the fan could achieve. The difference in noise levels between low and high were negligible with the Scythe 120mm fan, so only high levels, which are generally below the system noise floor are reported. Tests were also run with a push-pull dual fan setup using two Scythe 120mm silent fans. These results are reports in the noise graphs as Dual Fan.
There are virtually no power supplies that do not have a fan. While Zalman and a few others do make a few expensive fanless power supplies, we have not seen a fanless unit larger than 500W, or one 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 of the high performance power supplies. The noise level of the power supply was 38.3dB from 24" (61cm) and 47dB from 6" (152mm). The measured noise level of the test room is 36.4dB, which would be considered a relatively quiet room with a noise floor slightly below the OCZ PowerStream 520 PSU.
Measured noise levels in this chart should be considered worst case. Measurements were taken with 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 low-noise results with the Scythe Infinity are truly impressive. The stock single fan configuration scored some of the lowest noise results we have tested so far, generally remaining at or near the noise floor at both measurement distances. Even more impressive were the results with a dual-fan push-pull configuration. Noise results barely increased with two fans, again remaining at or near the system noise floor. Considering the Scythe matched our highest Tuniq overclocking results when running two fans, this is very impressive silence.
As already pointed out, any 120mm x 25mm fan should be mountable on the Infinity with a set of Scythe fan wires. The shipping fan is 1200 RPM and selected for silence. It's hard to complain about the noise measurements with this fan - single or dual. However, if you have a favorite silent fan or performance 120mm fan it should mount and work fine on the Scythe Infinity.
While the Scythe matched the Tuniq in overclocking and tied for the best OC with an air cooler, it is clearly the winner in silence at high speeds. This is true whether you run a single stock fan or dual silent fans. The Infinity is certainly bulky, as are most effective heatpipe towers, but fans of low noise cooling should definitely add the latest Infinity to their shopping list.
For many enthusiasts upgrading cooling the goal is maximum stable overclock, and they will live with the inconvenience of a louder system. For other users silence is the most important factor, and these users will forgo maximum overclocking if this increase system noise levels. In general the Zalman 9500 and 9700 can be considered very quiet, but performance of either cooler is not standout against the competition - at least where noise is concerned.
To test idle and load noise levels, a Zalman Fan Mate 2 fan controller was used to dial in the lowest and highest fan speeds the fan could achieve. The difference in noise levels between low and high were negligible with the Scythe 120mm fan, so only high levels, which are generally below the system noise floor are reported. Tests were also run with a push-pull dual fan setup using two Scythe 120mm silent fans. These results are reports in the noise graphs as Dual Fan.
There are virtually no power supplies that do not have a fan. While Zalman and a few others do make a few expensive fanless power supplies, we have not seen a fanless unit larger than 500W, or one 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 of the high performance power supplies. The noise level of the power supply was 38.3dB from 24" (61cm) and 47dB from 6" (152mm). The measured noise level of the test room is 36.4dB, which would be considered a relatively quiet room with a noise floor slightly below the OCZ PowerStream 520 PSU.
Measured noise levels in this chart should be considered worst case. Measurements were taken with 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 low-noise results with the Scythe Infinity are truly impressive. The stock single fan configuration scored some of the lowest noise results we have tested so far, generally remaining at or near the noise floor at both measurement distances. Even more impressive were the results with a dual-fan push-pull configuration. Noise results barely increased with two fans, again remaining at or near the system noise floor. Considering the Scythe matched our highest Tuniq overclocking results when running two fans, this is very impressive silence.
As already pointed out, any 120mm x 25mm fan should be mountable on the Infinity with a set of Scythe fan wires. The shipping fan is 1200 RPM and selected for silence. It's hard to complain about the noise measurements with this fan - single or dual. However, if you have a favorite silent fan or performance 120mm fan it should mount and work fine on the Scythe Infinity.
While the Scythe matched the Tuniq in overclocking and tied for the best OC with an air cooler, it is clearly the winner in silence at high speeds. This is true whether you run a single stock fan or dual silent fans. The Infinity is certainly bulky, as are most effective heatpipe towers, but fans of low noise cooling should definitely add the latest Infinity to their shopping list.
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Wesley Fink - Monday, February 26, 2007 - link
The famous thermal compound review is at http://www.dansdata.com/goop.htm">http://www.dansdata.com/goop.htm. While it is written tongue-in-cheek the test methods are well conceived and there is a terrific discussion of what is significant and what is trivial in testing computer components. After I read the review a while ago I tested every thermal compound I had spent big bucks on and got very similar results.I will concede that the more fluid compounds do work a little better when you have tiny contact areas as in the older Socket A AMD - at least initially. But with heatspreaders on all the CPUs these days the thermal grease used makes very little difference as long as it holds up, isn't particualrly conductive, and doesn't dry out. Applying it properly can make a big difference in performance, however.
Those not from Oz may recall the Men At Work song "Down Under" that makes reference to a "vegemite sandwich". Now you'll understand Vegemite is that brown vegatable spread about the texture of mayonnaise that is uniquely popular in Austalia.
DrMrLordX - Tuesday, February 27, 2007 - link
While I'll generally agree with you, there is at least one TIM that is positively insane that may outperform the usual gunk, and that's Coollaboratory's Liquid Pro (their Metal Pads don't seem to work as well). That stuff will literally dissolve aluminum and otherwise make a terrible mess. It's mostly gallium, indium, and tin I'm told. Strange stuff.Others swear by Shin-Etsu X23-7783D as being clearly superior to AS5 and AS Ceramique. I've only seen one benchmark featuring the X23, but it even beat the crazy Liquid Pro in that benchmark.
Really, it would be more interesting to see benchmarks of the TIMs themselves than anything else. Your current TIM strategy in your heatsink tests is fine by me.
BigLan - Monday, February 26, 2007 - link
I think the toothpaste and vegemite article is on dansdata. (Dan used to do HSF reviews back in the Socket A days and had literally dozens of them all compared.) While toothpaste might work for testing, it does dry out very quickly and so would need to be replaced after a short period of time (probably days.) You could use it in a pinch, but I wouldn't want to try for 3117 overclocks with it!Binkt - Monday, February 26, 2007 - link
"We have the Thermalright 120 in for review, and we will also be testing the Scythe Ninja Rev. B. Noctua, an Austrian manufacturer of cooling solutions"Could you be specific on the model of thermalright 120 that you have in for upcoming tests? I assume that you mean the Ultra-120, since it is the current heavy-hitter from my personal favorite manufacturer.
Thanks, and keep up the great work!
PS. Any hope for a look at virtualization performance of current CPU's and platforms? hint: Asrock 775Dual-VSTA vs. more expensive i965 boards vs. AMD VT-enabled platforms ?
Wesley Fink - Monday, February 26, 2007 - link
The cooler is the Thermalright Ultra 120.lopri - Monday, February 26, 2007 - link
It's got to be Ultra-120. I'd personally rate Tuniq 120, Scythe Infinity, and Ultra-120 as top 3 air coolers today. BTW, what does this article have to do with virtualization??To Wesley: Thanks for the article. And I totally agree with your assessment on Infinity's mounting mechanism. It flexes motherboard and makes me uncomfortable to have it in my tower. Also it might not block DIMM slots on the tested motherboard, but I had some difficulties on other boards. (especially if I wanted to make use of any RAM cooling)
Did Infinity go through revisions? If so, what are the differences from original model and the current one?
thestain - Monday, February 26, 2007 - link
Making comparisons based upon 38 dba is not a real test of quietness, try to get your rig a little quieter, maybe shoot for 33-34 so we can see these products spread themselves out more. Have you made any effort to test your test rig to see if the Power supply is making too much racket, in qhixh case replace it with a comparable performing Corsair or Seasonic, and can you turn down the fan slightly on your graphics card??Wesley Fink - Monday, February 26, 2007 - link
With all computers, monitors, printers, lamps, etc. turned off in our testing romm the ambient noise is 36.4db. Reaching 33 to 34db as a base is therefore not likely. The OCZ 520 is one of the quietest power supplies we have tested. We have also tested with a small basic video card just to see if noise can be lowered further. The result was we had reached the floor of the PS. We also have to unplug the nVidia northbridge fan during noise measurements because it is much louder than the PS, video card fan or most coolers that we have tested.There is a place for fanless power supplies, fanless video cards, and coolers that are silent, but for the great bulk of readers we really see little point in testing below the noise floor of the power supply.
We could do like some other sites and isolate the test board in a sound chamber away from the power supply, but I seriously doubt this is how our readers run their silent PCs. We definitely hear what you are saying, but our noise testing is looking at real-world noise levels. There are other sites that specialize in silence at levels you would more likely find in a noise testing lab.
cujo - Monday, February 26, 2007 - link
you're forgetting a very popular cooler. i'd love to see the results of that vs. these other coolers.i would also suggest looking at motherboard/chipset temperatures as most of these tower coolers do nothing for those.
DrMrLordX - Tuesday, February 27, 2007 - link
I'm sure they'll get around to it eventually . . . that or the Big Typhoon VX.The article is well-done though, and I'm very glad that you did the dual-fan setup guys. If you look at other tests of the Infinity with dual fans, you'll find that using anything faster than 1200rpm in a push-pull config is really unnecessary. Once you have the second fan going you're getting the best you can get out of the Infinity.