Acoustic Samples: Listen to this Heatsink!

The sound levels that this heatsink produces are not that high, and in fact in the server environment they are probably muted out by other case fans or SCSI drives. Still if you are looking for something to cool a small form factor P4 cube system we have taken the liberty of recording the actual heatsink sounds.To hear what this heatsink actually sounds like, just click on the little pair of headphones and listen to this heatsink for yourself.

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 these are real world measurements.

FrostyTech Sound Level Results
-	Manufacturer	Model	Noise Level	Scale
	Zalman	CNPS6500-AlCu	47.4/28.9 dB	quiet
	Intel	Socket 478	42.5 dB
	Cho-Liang	CL-CB0094-1A	49.8 dB
	Cho-Liang	CL-CB00881	50.2 dB
	Dynatron	DC1206BMV	55.1 dB
	AVC	117140	56.1 dB
	NengTyi	NW6700	58.0 dB	louder

AT 55.1 dB the Dynatron DC1206BMV is rather loud on our small list of socket 478 heatsinks. The small fan would seem to one that would make less noise than the others, but perhaps the close proximity to the fins is causing a lot of turbulence amongst the exhaust air. In any case, the DC1206BMV is louder than the standard Intel retail heatsink.