Testing

The XP-90c heatsink was tested on an open frame K8 test rig consisting of the components listed below.  The ambient room air temperature was maintained at 24°C ±0.5°C.  The CPU was loaded by running Folding@Home 24/7.  Several dozen temperature reading were recorded and averaged over 2~3 days for each test.

 

Thermalright XP-90c Heatsink Review - Cases and Cooling 17

 

  • Asus K8N-E Deluxe nForce3-250 motherboard
  • AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (0.13 µm Newcastle core)
  • Seasonic SuperTornado 400 watt ATX power supply
  • (2) Corsair CMX512-3200C2  DDR RAM
  • ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
  • WD800JB IDE HDD
  • Sony 16X DVD, FDD
  • Windows XP Pro with SP1

 Thermalright XP-90c Heatsink Review - Cases and Cooling 18

 

To facilitate taking accurate CPU temperature measurements I attached a very small Omega thermocouple to the side of the Athlon 64 IHS with Arctic Alumina thermal epoxy.  The measurement equipment used during testing included:

  • CPU/IHS — Barnant Model 115 digital thermometer (accuracy +/- 0.4º C)
  • Ambient air — Barnant Model 115 digital thermometer (accuracy +/- 0.4º C)
  • Extech Model 407736 digital sound level meter (accuracy +/- 1.5 dB)

 I used four different fans during testing, ranging from low speed — very quiet, to high speed — very loud, to see how the heatsink responds to different rates of airflow.  All fans were run at 12 VDC.

 

  • 80mm Panaflo L1A, 1900 RPM, 24 CFM, 21 dBA
  • 92mm SilenX iXtrema, 1800 RPM, 36 CFM, 14 dBA
  • 92mm Panaflo M1A, 2450 RPM, 48 CFM, 30 dBA
  • 92mm Vantec Tornado (Sunon), 4800 RPM, 119 CFM, 56.4 dBA

 Thermalright XP-90c Heatsink Review - Cases and Cooling 19

 

The following data is presented for comparative purposes only.  Your actual results may be different depending on the variables unique to your system (CPU, overclock, ambient temperature, case air flow, temperature monitoring, etc). 

 

Thermalright XP-90c Heatsink Review - Cases and Cooling 20

 

CPU — Temperature reported by Asus PC Probe utility (internal diode)

Tc — Temperature obtained with calibrated thermocouple attached to IHS

Delta T — Fully loaded Tc temperature rise above ambient

dBA — Sound pressure level recorded 3′ away (background ~30 dBA)

 

For comparison, here are the results from several other popular HSFs for the K8 platform and the stock OEM aluminum HSF that comes bundled with the Athlon 64 3200+.  All HSFs were tested on the same CPU under the same conditions.

 

  • Thermalright XP-90 with 80mm Panaflo L1A, 92mm Panaflo M1A and 92mm Tornado
  • Thermalright XP-120 with 120mm Panaflo L1A and 120mm Delta SHE
  • Cooler Master Hyper 6 with 80mm CM variable speed fan and 80mm Vantec Tornado
  • Cooler Master Hyper 48 with 92mm Delta and 92mm Sunon Tornado
  • Gigabyte 3D Rocket Cooler-Pro with integrated, variable speed, blower-style fan
  • Athlon 64 3200+ OEM aluminum heatsink with 70mm fan

 Thermalright XP-90c Heatsink Review - Cases and Cooling 21

 

As you can see, the new XP-90C turned in 1~3ºC better temperatures than the original copper/aluminum XP-90 depending on airflow.  This small improvement probably won’t justify replacing an existing XP-90 with the all copper version but for a new build the choice is obvious.

 

The Thermalright XP-90c exhibited very good performance across a full range of noise levels.  Even with the virtually silent 80mm Panaflo L1A or SilenX fans, the XP-90c was able to cool the Athlon 64 3200+ quite well.  Replacing the quiet fans with progressively higher flow (and noisier) fans resulted in even better temperatures.  The high-speed Vantec Tornado produced outstanding temperatures, coming close to matching the performance of the larger XP-120 or Hyper 6 heatsinks when used with noisy, high flow fans.

 

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