New Mid-Priced Coolers from OCZ and Scythe: The Small and the X of It
by Wesley Fink on October 1, 2007 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Noise
For many enthusiasts looking to upgrade their 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 that increases system noise levels.
Smaller fans are generally noisier than large fans, so we really didn't expect super low noise with these mid-level air coolers. What we found were very good results, below the system noise floor, with the Scythe S-FLEX SFF21 on the Kama Cross and poorer than expected noise levels on the Vendetta.
The new test bed is successful in lowering the systems noise floor slightly in some measurements and dramatically in the 6" noise floor measurement. This had an impact on several earlier measurements, lowering the water cooling system measurements (quieter performance) on most benchmarks. Noise measurements on the new test bed will be discussed in detail in a future review when we have completed several other noise reduction measures in the updating of our cooling test environment.
No matter how you approach it, noise levels of the OCZ Vendetta 92mm fan were a disappointment. We really expected the elastomeric attachments and very good noise specifications of the fan to shine in these tests, but fan noise will be too much for many users at the effective higher speed of the Vendetta fan. Noise at the lower speed is below the noise floor, but performance suffers pretty dramatically. Since the Vendetta fan ran at high speed in almost all our testing, the best solution may be to replace the fan with a high output, ultra low-noise 92mm fan.
A good substitute for the Vendetta fan might be the Scythe Kama 92mm with a PWM connector and air flow to 55 CFM at around $10. Another good choice might be the Thermaltake 92mm smart fan at around $14. It is extremely loud at the top 78.7 CFM, but the speed varies from 1300-4000 RPM with a corresponding output of 24.6 to 78.7 CFM at noise levels from 17.0 to 48.5 dBA. However, most middle output levels that would match the needs of the Vendetta are reasonably quiet. You would also have the option to overclock higher with the greater output if that is your goal, but the trade-off is higher noise.
For many enthusiasts looking to upgrade their 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 that increases system noise levels.
Smaller fans are generally noisier than large fans, so we really didn't expect super low noise with these mid-level air coolers. What we found were very good results, below the system noise floor, with the Scythe S-FLEX SFF21 on the Kama Cross and poorer than expected noise levels on the Vendetta.
The new test bed is successful in lowering the systems noise floor slightly in some measurements and dramatically in the 6" noise floor measurement. This had an impact on several earlier measurements, lowering the water cooling system measurements (quieter performance) on most benchmarks. Noise measurements on the new test bed will be discussed in detail in a future review when we have completed several other noise reduction measures in the updating of our cooling test environment.
No matter how you approach it, noise levels of the OCZ Vendetta 92mm fan were a disappointment. We really expected the elastomeric attachments and very good noise specifications of the fan to shine in these tests, but fan noise will be too much for many users at the effective higher speed of the Vendetta fan. Noise at the lower speed is below the noise floor, but performance suffers pretty dramatically. Since the Vendetta fan ran at high speed in almost all our testing, the best solution may be to replace the fan with a high output, ultra low-noise 92mm fan.
A good substitute for the Vendetta fan might be the Scythe Kama 92mm with a PWM connector and air flow to 55 CFM at around $10. Another good choice might be the Thermaltake 92mm smart fan at around $14. It is extremely loud at the top 78.7 CFM, but the speed varies from 1300-4000 RPM with a corresponding output of 24.6 to 78.7 CFM at noise levels from 17.0 to 48.5 dBA. However, most middle output levels that would match the needs of the Vendetta are reasonably quiet. You would also have the option to overclock higher with the greater output if that is your goal, but the trade-off is higher noise.
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Wesley Fink - Monday, October 1, 2007 - link
There is only one game available that may possibly perform better with a quad CPU. Our original thinking was that we would wait to move to quad testing until games are launched that give us a reason to buy a quad-core - somewhere in the future.However, the point is well-taken that quads do generate more heat than dual-core processors, so we will be doing a comparison in the next few weeks on a range of coolers tested on a quad-core CPU.
Acanthus - Monday, October 1, 2007 - link
That is fantastic, not all of us buy quads for gaming :DI have one for encoding.
strikeback03 - Tuesday, October 2, 2007 - link
same here, though it would be nice if Premiere would make use of more than one core.Spacecomber - Monday, October 1, 2007 - link
The graphs and the discussion of them seemed out of synch, especially on page 5. It's as if the chart being discussed didn't get included or the discussion is meant for another section.Anyway, I got confused at that point, just looked at the graphs, and drew my own conclusions from there on. ;-)
Wesley Fink - Monday, October 1, 2007 - link
The Intel Retail results on p.5 had not been updated for CoreTemp results. That has now been updated. Hopefully the commentary now matches the graphs.Spacecomber - Monday, October 1, 2007 - link
Yup, the previous bar for the intel heatsink said something like 41 deg, which left me scratching my head.The discussion of how the cooling scaled with higher clock speeds also seemed out of place on that page, since there is no graphical representation of that until you get to page 7. Perhaps you were just making those comments paranthetically on page 5, but I wasn't clear why it was being discussed where all the results being graphically presented were for default clock speeds.
FrankThoughts - Monday, October 1, 2007 - link
...that took one look at the Scythe "I'm an X! Isn't that AWESOME!" design and immediately figured performance was going to suck? Repeat after me: gimmicky cooler designs do NOT work well! Just look at the first image of the cooler: all the closely packed fins, lots of gap between the fan and the fins, and you can already guess that most of the air so going to go around the fins rather than through them.Maybe a plastic shroud around the HSF would have helped, but even then a large amount of air would just go through the center gap. This is one of those designs that looks nifty but has some bassackwards thermodynamic "theory" at its core.
strikeback03 - Tuesday, October 2, 2007 - link
I'm just surprised they let something out that sucks this bad. If the performance were at least a little better than stock some might buy it for the looks, but this performance is just embarrassing to Scythe.puffpio - Monday, October 1, 2007 - link
I agreeYou can immediately look at it and see that the air the fan blows is going to go AROUND the heat sink...basic fluid dynamics..path of least resistance
But also w/ the OCZ cooler, they cut out some heat sink fins to make a curve shape...so you loose thermal capacity and gain aesthetics?
Someone needs to design an enthusiast heat sink and fan that consulted a thermal and aerodynamic engineer...perhaps tapping into the skill set of people who design car radiators..
KazenoKoe - Wednesday, October 3, 2007 - link
I would like to know how the Scythe cooler performs with 2 smaller fans, one for each heatsink, instead of one fan at an odd angle.