Hi guys and gals,

Here's a little test i did over the weekend. A small contribution from me to the LYN community.

Its a shootout to determine the most suitable cooler for my NF680i northbridge. As most of us knows, this chip is crazy hot. So, lets see which one of the following choices will be suitable for the chip.

The contenders are:

DFI's very own Heat-Minator

ThermalRight HR05 SLI-IFX

Noctua U6



Initial Comments:
These are the 3 choices that i know could offer possible solution. The heatpipe design on these suits the application and purpose of the test, which is to tame the 680i chip. This test involves testing it on its own and with a 80mm fan blowing about 40-50cfm onto the heatsink directly. Using Everest Ultimate 4.00 to capture the temp reading.
There are also choices from CoolerMaster and Evercool, will consider them later on.

This is the setup:



Intel C2D E6300 -- Stock settings
DFI LP UT NF680i LT SLI
Crucial 512MB DDR2 667 x 4
Galaxy 7300GT 128MB DDR3 Low Profile
Western Digital IDE 80GB HDD
SilverStone ST75F
NMB 80mm Fan at 7V
3M ThermalPad with thermal conductivity similar to Arctic Silver 5




Brief product descriptions:

DFI Heat-Minator

- Bundled with the LP UT NF680i LT SLI mobo, also sold seperately for nearly RM 200 pricetag
- Full Alu with copper base


Thermalright HR05 SLI IFX

- Available locally, reasonably priced.
- Full Alu with copper base anodized with nickel


Noctua U6

- Available thru bulk section in LYN, ask irangan
- Aluminium fin with copper heatpipe and base



Group photo:





***Please pardon me for the poor picture quality. Taken by Camera Phone.

This post has been edited by jy14: Oct 3 2007, 09:18 AM

This is the temperature readings shown on the Everest Ultimate.


For the DFI Heatminator:

Stock setting without any fan on the heatsink


Stock setting with a NMB 80mm fan (7V, 40cfm) on the heatsink



==================================================================================



For the Noctua U6:

Stock setting without any fan on the heatsink


Stock setting with a NMB 80mm fan (7V, 40cfm) on the heatsink




==================================================================================




For the Thermalright HR05 SLI IFX:

Stock setting without any fan on the heatsink


Stock setting with a NMB 80mm fan (7V, 40cfm) on the heatsink


This post has been edited by jy14: Oct 2 2007, 10:39 AM

From the result shown, I guess you guys can make out the conclusion on ur own. This are the retail units, not any special demo units and this uses the 3M ThermalPad with thermal conductivity similar to the AS5. So, if using Chill Factor or MX-1, temp can be expected to drop abit more.

I won't draw my conclusion, but i'll let u guys decide on it.

All I can say is, the fitting are all easy, except the Thermalright HR05 SLI IFX, I'll grab the HR05 IFX when its available and give it a try, hopefully to find something interesting since the SLI version had some issues on fitting clash with the Galaxy 7300GT. The temp ready taken for the Thermalright heatsink was about 3-5 minutes after windows had boot up and left idle. The rest of the heatsinks, all got 10-15 mins of idle time before the temp was taken. The reason the Thermalright heatsink reading was taken early was bcoz its obstructing the screws on the Galaxy 7300GT heatsink, so its kinda bend a little and I didn't wan to keep it there for long, so just take the temp ready as soon as it idles and temp drops to a still.

Will try to test with other options later on.

Thanks for viewing, all opinions and queries are welcomed.

Nice comparison jy14, under what circumstance do we need to have a 3rd party cooling setup for chipset??? Is it a necessity???

overclocking

when overclock, stability affected by northbridge and southbridge temp

Usually its important when you decide to overclock it, just like your CPU cooler, if you want to yield a further OC, u will need to make it cooler too. So, the northbridge and southbridge will need the same too.


Thanks for the help bro. I'm also looking forward to learn more from u too.

All are welcome to comment and also advice.

Thank you in advance.

Wrong!
All Thermalright heatsink comes with copper base and copper heatpipe.
[Except Thermalright V2, Thermalright XP90C & Thermalright NB-1C]

HR-05, HR-05, HR-05 IFX & HR-05 IFX SLi comes with copper base and copper heatpipes.
You see those heatsinks in full aluminium is because the base and heatpipes were copper anodized with nickel.

This post has been edited by sHawTY: Oct 2 2007, 05:46 PM

Noted it. Thanks for the info.

Price for each item ?

from the result given...the temp for mobo seem quite high no matter which cooler used...somemore this is in open case...if inside a casing...I can't imagine what temp will it be... and from the result...the DFI Heatminator seem give the lowest temp even thought it din drop as much as U6...

I never thought that NB temp can be that high...

These 680i chips are well known for the heat. If u try to touch the P5N32SLI from Asus, don't leave ur fingers on it for any longer than 1s when it has booted into windows. A WC solution will be best to solve the heat issue but, the DFI's NF680i weakness is that it uses the clip version, not the push pin type, therefore, making water cooling soltuion not suitable. Only these coolers are effective to cool it down.

I have begin to OC the board with the E6300 now, but, the heat did not increase in the northbridge, just the proc's temp increased. Will try out TT V1 on the E6300 soon.

nice John..but why u din decide the conclusion?

from the result u can decide already.....

@emilz : hahahahaha.....ya difficult to say TR s the winner. But for me, U6 stiil the best la. Price~performance, some times it better than what u expect

but i'm still can not install my u6 coz i use sycthe infinity. Damn it, i've try before...but u6 can not running well. Coz there is gape between base plate U6 and NB chipet. It caused by scythe infinity.

Well, I'm a reseller for the DFI Heat-Minator and also the TR HR05-SLI IFX, will be not fair for me to draw the conclusions.

Bsides, there's more to be tested later on.

Main focus of this is to get a cooler, which preferbly is noiseless and its within reasonable budget. The price per performance ratio, u guys will determine it. I'm just helping out on some review and also ideas.

bro, wat is the different between HR-05 SLI and HR-05 SLI-IFX,
thinking to get one coz my NB are hot too...

btw, a bit noob here,
which temperature show the NorthBridge and SouthBridge?

This post has been edited by cschun86: Nov 1 2007, 04:13 PM

apart from the design, u can fix a fan on HR-05 SLI-IFX but not to HR-05 SLI

Northbridge = Northbridge
Southbridge = System

huh???
from the picture show by the TS,
at the temperature section,
didnt have northbridge and system wor...