Acoustic Samples: Listen to this Heatsink!

The little 10mm Delta fan doesn't make much noise which is good for the ears. Of course, at just 21CFM it doesn't move a lot of air, but hopefully the good design here can make up that short coming.

To hear for yourself what this heatsink actually sounds like, just click on the headphones and listen to the MP3 recording.

FrostyTech Acoustic Sampling Chamber
Standard Waveform view of a 10 second recording. Click on the headphones to listen to an MP3 recording of this heatsink in operation.

Sound Level Measurements:

Listening to the actual noise a heatsink makes allows you to hear what pure numbers alone cannot get across. To further emphasize FrostyTech's reliance on cold hard facts when evaluating a heatsink, we also take Decibel readings with a sound level meter. These results may be higher than the manufacturer's listed specs but then again, they are real world measurements.

FrostyTech Sound Level Results
-	Manufacturer	Model	Noise Level	Scale
	Zalman	All Flower HSF	47.4/28.9 dB	quiet
	Taisol	CGK760092	48.4 dB
	Noisecontrol	Silverado	50.8 dB
	Thermal Integration	Ti-V77L	53.0 dB
	Tocools	Crown	54.5 dB
	Sibak	AT01515B	55.8 dB
	Dynatron	DC1206BMP	65.1 dB	louder

The Taisol heatsink does pretty well here, producing only slightly more noise than the very quiet Zalman does with its 92mm fan.

Synthetic Temperature Test Results: *Ranked according to 100W small interface die test results.

FrostyTech Synthetic Temperature Test Platform Results
	Mfg.	Model	Ambient Temp.	27mm large copper block	15mm small copper block		27mm large copper block	15mm small copper block	Thermal pad	No. Fans	Fan Noise	Clip force
				50W	50W		100W	100W
1	Thermal Integration	TI-V77L	26.5	39.1	44.4		57.5	63.6	grey	1	med	med
2	Swiftech	MCXC370	21.4	38.3	43.4		53.5	65.7	none	1	med	med
3	Tocools	Crown	23.2	38.8	53.2		47.9	70.2	none	1	loud	stiff
4	OCZ	Gladiator	21.4	33.3	47.3		50.6	70.3	none	1	very loud	med
5	Vantec	CCK-6027D	27.4	45.4	49.6		64.9	73.4	none	1	med	med
6	Swiftech	MCX370	22.3	42.0	46.1		60.3	75.6	none	1	med	hard
7	Taisol	CGK760092	23.4	42.7	61.2		51.3	77.5	pink	1	low	med
8	Zalman	CNPS6000-Cu	24.8	46.4	53.8		65.6	78.2	none	1	very low	easy
9	AVC	112AM1	24.8	46.6	52.9		70.1	79.6	none	1	low	stiff
10	Thermaltake	Volcano 6cu+	26.5	40.3	55.3		58.6	84.4	carbon	1	loud	med
11	Spire	5T060B1H3R	26.7	42.7	57.5		64.6	85.1	none	1	low	med
12	Zalman	CNPS6000AlCu	24.9	48.3	56.3		72.2	86.0	none	1	low	med
13	Sibak	AT01515B	23.0	45.1	64.6		60.1	95.2	none	2	med	stiff
				50W	50W		100W	100W

Well the Taisol CGK760092 looks like it is a standard middle of the road cooler, nothing special, but not a danger to your processor either. The performance of the Taisol heatsink on the large interface die is quite good, especially at 100W, perhaps hinting that this heatsink is better suited to heatspreader encased processors.

Rise Above Ambient Temp. (c)
	Mfg.	Model	27mm large copper block	15mm small copper block		27mm large copper block	15mm small copper block
			50W	50W		100W	100W
1	Thermal Integration	TI-V77L	12.6	17.9		31.0	37.1
2	Swiftech	MCXC370	16.9	22.0		32.1	44.3
3	Vantec	CCK-6027D	18.0	22.2		37.5	46.0
4	Tocools	Crown	15.6	30.0		24.7	47.0
5	OCZ	Gladiator	12.0	26.0		29.2	49.0
6	Swiftech	MCX370	19.7	23.8		38.0	53.3
7	Zalman	CNPS6000-Cu	21.6	29.0		40.8	53.4
8	Taisol	CGK760092	19.3	37.8		27.9	54.1
9	AVC	112AM1	21.8	28.1		45.3	54.8
10	Thermaltake	Volcano 6cu+	13.8	28.8		32.1	57.9
10	Spire	5T060B1H3R	16.0	30.8		37.9	58.4
11	Zalman	CNPS6000AlCu	23.4	31.4		47.3	61.1
13	Sibak	AT01515B	22.1	41.6		37.1	72.2
			50W	50W		100W	100W

The final results echo what we saw previously, the Taisol CGK760092 is a mid-level cooler good for non-overclocked systems. It would be interesting to see how well this heatsink could handle the tests with a more powerful fan, but for the moment, the 10mm thick Delta doesn't do to shabby.

Best of all for standard users is the relatively low noise signature of this heatsink. At just 48.4 db it is probably going to be drowned out by the power supply or video card cooling than anything else.

The cold forged manufacturing is a neat way to make a heatsink and from the outset the copper base looks like it provides some good heatspreading properties to the CGK760092. At less noise than a Thermaltake Volcano 6Cu+, less weight, and with better performance you can see how Taisol stands - a good mid-level cooler for standard non-overclocked systems.