Testing
The Hyper 6+ heatsink was tested on an open frame K8 test rig consisting of the components listed below. The ambient room air temperature was maintained at 23°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.
- 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
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 was not able to test the Hyper 6+ with any other fans other than the one included because of the odd size. I did however run the fan at both 12V and 7V.
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).
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.
- Cooler Master Hyper 6 with 80mm CM variable speed fan and 80mm Vantec Tornado
- Thermalright XP-90c with 80mm Panaflo L1A, 92mm SilenX, 92mm Panaflo M1A and 92mm Tornado
- 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 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
As you can see, the new Hyper 6+ is much quieter than the original Hyper 6 but the performance was not as good with the supplied 100mm fan. Again, it’s a shame Cooler Master chose to use an odd size fan, because the Hyper 6+ has the potential for much better performance when used with different fans.
The Cooler Master Hyper 6+ exhibited good performance with the fan operating at 12V. At 7V, the temperatures rose a bit but were still acceptable and the cooler was virtually silent. Unfortunately I did not have any higher speed 100mm fans to test the coolers high end performance potential.
