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By blueonblack at 2010-01-04 23:17
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Processors get hot. It's the nature of the machine. We all like speed, but with that speed comes heat, and as a rule the faster it is the hotter it gets. Lots of companies offers a lot of different ways to deal with this heat, from the mundane to the exotic, but unfortunately when the build is done the budget often doesn't leave room for a decent cooling solution. Enter the Spire Thermax Pro...
We see a lot of hardware here at TBCS, most of it amazing and much of it very expensive. Building and modding computers is an expensive hobby, a lesson I learned the hard way with my first real build. The wise builder plans ahead for adequate cooling, but a lot of times the solution that ends up inside the machine is really more than is needed. I'm all for overkill myself, but if I can move some money in my budget from the CPU cooler to, say, a faster video card, deal me in.
We recently received a sample of the Thermax Pro CPU cooler from Spire, and I got the honor of putting it through its paces. First off, let's take a look at the cooler. When I opened up the package I got what has come to be expected in any modern CPU cooler: the cooler itself, adapters to fit the advertised mounting hardware, fan mounts, adapters and a small container of the supplier's thermal compound. The Thermax Pro also includes a 90mm fan and a PCI slot-based fan controller.
The Spire Thermax Pro is a simple cooler with three 8mm u-shaped heatpipes and forty-five aluminum fins.
All of the above is fairly normal in a budget cooler, with the possible exception of the fan controller. What surprised me was the fact that the Thermax Pro has direct-touch heatpipes. These are a fairly new innovation in air coolers, and though they are becoming more common up to this point they were relegated to more expensive hardware. Anyone who has seen any of the more prevalent DHT coolers can see that the polish on the base of the Thermax Pro is above average.
As mentioned, the Thermax Pro comes with a Spire-branded 90mm cooling fan that features UV-reactive blades (in blue of course) and a very low decibel rating: 25dBA. For those unfamiliar with dBA levels, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration compares 25dBA to a recording studio. Very quiet. We'll see.
One thing that will certainly help the fan noise on this cooler is the mounting setup. The fan on the Thermax Pro uses a fairly standard clip-on system, but Spire has included a rubber isolator setup that prevents the fan from actually coming on contact with the body of the cooler, thus eliminating possible vibration noise.
The supplied fan comes with a standard 3-pin connector, and the Thermax Pro ships with two adapters to run it off of Molex connections: one to power the fan directly and another to adapt to the power inlet in the included fan controller. This is another example of functional simplicity in a budget package.
The Thermax Pro is designed to fit AM2, 775 and 1366 processors, and I have to say that the adapters that come with this cooler are unlike any I have ever seen. As you can tell from the pictures, the cooler supports the AM2 setup natively. If you look closely you can also see that the simple design of the base of this cooler leaves no room or allowance for modification to fit anything else. Instead, the Thermax Pro ships with two adapters that will change the retention system on 775 and 1366 motherboards to an AM2 setup.
The 775 adapter bracket comes with plastic push-pins that feed through the corners of the plate and into the motherboard.
The 1366 adapter features a steel backplate and mounting screws.
As I run an AMD system neither of these was needed for testing purposes, but I have always been a fan of the AM2 mount myself, and I like this setup. While it is more difficult for the Intel chip owner at first, should they decide to change coolers in the future these adapters can be left in place and any cooler that supports AM2 mounting can be used. I have to note here that the mounting clips on this cooler are very tight. I've installed and removed more AM2 coolers that I can count and this is by far the tightest fit I've seen. Installing the cooler was a snap, but removing it was a real problem. The tabs on the clips are bent upward, so that any downward pressure applied to them to release the clip also applies pressure inward. I actually had to remove the motherboard from my system to get this cooler off.
On to the testing. The Spire Thermax Pro was tested against three other air coolers: the SpinQ from Thermaltake, the Tower 120 from Tuniq, and the Thor's Hammer from Xigmatek. The Tuniq and Zigmatek coolers each feature 120mm fans, while the SpinQ has an 80mm crossflow fan. Of these three coolers, only the Xigmatek also has direct-touch heatpipes.
The specs for the test bed used:
MSI 785GTM-E45 mainboard
AMD Phenom II 940 3.0GHz 125-watt CPU at stock speed
4GB G-Skill DDR2 1066 memory
Sapphire HD4870 video card
Kingwin Mach 1 800-watt PSU
Hitachi Deskstar 500GB SATA HDD
Enermax Uber Chakra case
Arctic Silver ArctiClean was used to clean the CPU before each test, and Arctic Silver Lumiere thermal compound was used.
For the testing a baseline idle temp was established by letting the computer idle for 30 minutes. At that point each cooler was subjected to a 30-minute stress test using OCCT v3.1.0 with large data set selected. At the end of the test the peak temps were recorded. How does the Spire Thermax Pro stand up to the more expensive coolers in our test?
While the Spire Themax Pro didn't perform as well as our other three test coolers it did the job, keeping this very hot CPU down to 62 degrees during the test, and I'm happy to say that it did it quietly. I can't verify the 25 dBA claim, but I can tell you that even with the fan speed on max this fan was inaudible over the case fans in the Enermax Uber Chakra case, which are not loud by any means.
So what do I think of this offering to the CPU cooler market from Spire?
Pros:- Price
- Direct-touch heatpipes
- Included silent fan with manual control
Cons:- Not quite the performance of more expensive coolers
- Very hard to remove
Verdict:
Overall, the Thermax Pro from Spire is a good product at a great price. At the time of this writing the average price of this cooler online is $36. With the performance it offers and the noise level it offers it at, this cooler is hard to pass up.
This product was provided free of charge by the manufacture for purpose of review.
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