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Socket 775 and AM2 heatsink roundup

Mike D gives the Icrontic treatment to six different heatsinks

by Mike D. published Dec 11, 2007

Filed under: Intel, AMD, overclocking, cooling

UPDATE: Also check out Part 2, with two more heatsinks.

It has been quite some time since Icrontic reviewed a heatsink, so we thought we'd get back into the scene with a bang. Today, we'll be taking a look at six top-notch heatsinks from Scythe, Coolink, Tuniq and Thermalright.

It is really amazing just how far heatsinks have come over the last few years. It seems like just yesterday that top of the line HSFs employed small 60mm fans and heatpipes were unheard of. Times certainly have changed. Today, heatsinks are bigger than ever and 120mm fans are the norm.

As new CPUs keep getting hotter, heatsink manufacturers continue to push the limits with more and bigger heatpipes, tighter fin arrays and all sorts of other tricks of the trade. Performance levels once thought only possible with water-cooling have been achieved by many of the latest and greatest air coolers.

The six heatsinks we are going to be looking at today are all unique. Although there are similarities between them, they each try to go the extra mile with unique design elements for better performance and reduced noise. As history has shown, performance cannot be judged by specifications and appearance alone.

Let's take a look at the competition!

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About the author

Mike D.

Mike D. is a lead hardware reviewer for Icrontic. Mike was recently married, and lives in Canada.

16 Comments

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  1. shwaip said Dec 16, 2007 11:22pm (ET)

    hmm...the orders of the heatsinks on the graphs change...it's a little confusing. It would be easier to compare if the order was always the same, IMO.

  2. Leonardo said Dec 16, 2007 11:33pm (ET)

    Thanks for well-done review. Information I can use. It was easy to read and digest.

  3. TheLostSwede said Dec 17, 2007 3:51am (ET)

    Excellent review and ver well written Mike. I actually like the way you had the graphs written. The best one on top.

  4. Thelemech said Dec 17, 2007 6:04am (ET)

    This article has perfect timing(in my world ), as it will help me to build my next machine. Great work Mike D and cheers for the editing Thrax!

  5. QCH2002 said Dec 17, 2007 10:21am (ET)

    Holy cow... that's one massive roundup. Very good job and I was amazed at the variety of the heatsink designs.


    Also... where DID you get that fancy AMD heatsink.

  6. lemonlime said Dec 17, 2007 6:20pm (ET)

    Thanks for the kind words all. It was a lot of work but I was pleased with the end result. I've already got two more heatsinks on the way that will be running through the same methodology.

    QCH2002 saidAlso... where DID you get that fancy AMD heatsink.


    Thanks again, Q!

    Keebler saidAlso, big ups to brudda' Thrax for helping out with some serious editing business to get it marked up for the new CMS.


    Thrax: Thanks very much for [strike]fixing my terrible grammar[/strike] tagging everything! really appreciate it.

  7. lemonlime said Dec 17, 2007 6:24pm (ET)

    Also, didn't bother including this in the review but for anyone interested:

    Ambient readings for all of the tests:

    See forum for imagesSee forum for images

    See forum for images

  8. Leonardo said Dec 17, 2007 7:18pm (ET)

    Deviation from the mean ambient temperature did not exceed 0.5C. That's very good. I have nowhere in my house where I could accomplish that. I suppose I could in the garage on a sub-zero night if I were to open the garage doors and leave them open. But, I'd have to just leave my hands in my parka's pockets and just look at the computer parts, not actually doing anything with them.

  9. Gargoyle said Dec 18, 2007 1:03am (ET)

    That was one incredibly thorough and informative review, LL!

    It was especially nice for me, since I stay comfortably behind the curve on hardware, and the SLK-900 was the last heatsink I used (before switching to equally antiquated water cooling systems, that is ).

    Kudos! Great photography in tight places, too.

  10. Snarkasm said Dec 20, 2007 1:56pm (ET)

    I've been meaning to ask: is the Mugen essentially just a rebrand of the Scythe Infinity, or is there some difference I'm not seeing? That's exactly what my Infinity looks like.

  11. Buddy J said Dec 20, 2007 4:17pm (ET)

    Same heatsink, different fans.

  12. Snarkasm said Dec 20, 2007 7:10pm (ET)

    Thank you, sir. I replaced the fan anyway with a pair of higher-CFM ones. Great sink all the same.

  13. Nightwolf said Dec 20, 2007 8:04pm (ET)

    Very helpful review!

  14. muddocktor said Dec 23, 2007 12:34am (ET)

    Nice review, Mike. Too bad you didn't have an U-120 eXtreme and a regular U-120 to test too though as both of those are stellar performers, if you get them with a decent base. As for the Tuniq, you called it exactly right about the AM2 mount being an afterthought. Tuniq developed the TT120 before AM2 was on the market and the original versions (including mine) didn't have any way to mount to AM2 included at all. They cobbled together the AM2 mount some time after AM2 came to market. That's why the mounting for LGA775 and socket 754/939/940 is soooooo much better. BTW, try that TT120 out on a socket 939 Opty or X2 system and watch how well it works.

  15. Ultra Nexus said Dec 29, 2007 8:39pm (ET)

    Great article, specially the simple, but effective way of testing base flatness!
    Thank you!

  16. Leonardo said Dec 29, 2007 9:53pm (ET)

    Oh yes, I want to reiterate what Ultra stated about flatness testing. I used that test a week ago when I decided to lap CPUs and heatsinks. It saved me time, indicating which were not flat and which did not need servicing. As it turns out, the only truly flat heatsink base among my Q6600 rigs was the Zalman 9700 NT. BTW, the Zalman's base is nickel coated.

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