360° View - DeepCool Ice Warrior Heatsink Information on Frostytech's test methodology is available here.
DeepCool's Ice Warrior heatsink ships with it's own special brand of rubber over moulded 120mm PWM fan. Additional wire fan brackets are supplied for users that wish to attach a second fan (not included) to the rear of the heatsink. The 155mm tall heatsink uses six 6mm diameter copper heatpipes to connect the copper base plate to the 114mm worth of aluminum cooling fins above. Each aluminum fin measures 0.4mm thick and is spaced 2.0mm from the next. The bottom-most fin is elevated 38mm above the base for motherboard clearance.
The six 6mm diameter copper heat pipes are set side-by-side into the 6mm thick nickel-plated copper base plate of the Ice Warrior heatsink. All joints at the base and fins are soldered for decreased thermal joint resistance. The copper base is capped with a small 18mm tall extruded aluminum heatsink, but other than providing support for the mounting brackets it's unnecessary. From the side we see the springy wire fan clip which has two small tabs to make fan removal an easy affair in the confines of a computer case.
The useable area of the Ice Warrior's base measures 38x42mm in size, the total copper plate is 39.5x50mm. The copper base plate ranges from 3mm to 6mm thick, average for a non-exposed heatpipe base. Looking at the top of the heatsink we can see the tell-tale hole to the left of each heatpipe that indicates the heatpipes have been soldered to the aluminum fins.

Base Finish and Flatness

Flipping a heatsink over to inspect the business end is often a simple indicator of overall cooler quality. More practically speaking, a heatsink is in many ways only as effective as the contact it makes with the processor - the flatter and smoother the better. Base finish is one of the criteria that Frostytech measure in the course of evaluating heatsinks, and it involves two distinct aspects. Surface Finish is the first; this is calculated with the aid of Surface Roughness Comparator that has a cross section of common machine surface finishes and their numerical surface roughness equivalents in microinches. The second is Surface Flatness. This is tested with an engineers straight edge or proven flat surface, in two axis.

DeepCool's Ice Warrior heatsink has a machined copper base plate with a surface roughness of approximately 8 microinches (the base is nickel plated). Slight machining marks are visible and apparent if a fingernail is drawn across the surface. According to the straight edge, the base is perfectly flat in one axis and just about so in the opposite.

Up next, acoustic measurements with each of the fans....