Thermaltake Big Typhoon 120VX

Next up is a popular model from Thermaltake, which has already gone through several changes. The latest model with the VX index has a simplified mounting system for LGA 775 and a fan with an increased speed.

The box is made in the company's traditional red colors. The cooler itself is clearly visible through the transparent plastic casing.

In a separate cardboard box inside the package there are additional accessories: clips for installation on motherboards for AMD K8/10 and Intel processors with Socket LGA775, as well as a small bag of thermal paste.

Stated characteristics:

Aluminum radiator fins are threaded onto curved heat pipes emerging from a copper base. The radiator itself is located parallel to the board and consists of two sections with three tubes each. Thanks to this design, a 120 mm fan, blowing through the radiator fins, additionally blows air around the socket space and elements.

Of all the coolers tested, the Big Typhoon had the poorest base processing quality. As you can see, despite some evolution of this cooler, it doesn’t even get to the point of polishing the base. The roughness and unevenness of the surface is perfectly felt to the touch.

Unlike all other coolers, the Big Typhoon 120VX has a speed controller located directly on it, and not removed from the case. The regulator is screwed to one of the corners. So, if you decide to reduce the fan speed, you will have to climb inside the system unit.

Inside the case, Big Typhoon looks simply huge. The red color of the impeller and the curved lines of the grill grate make the appearance aesthetically pleasing.

Considering the weight of the cooler, the reliability of fastening with plastic latches is questionable. But, unfortunately, the manufacturer decided that no additional means were needed to strengthen the motherboard.

Testing powerful coolers. Part one.
Thermaltake Big Typhoon 120 VX vs Noctua NH-U12P. Price niche $50-55
Preface

Today there are many different coolers on the Ukrainian market. Among them there are both expensive and affordable models, aimed at different categories of users. Most are purely budget class, but there are also Hi-End class coolers that are expensive. It is also worth noting that very expensive models do not always demonstrate the desired performance, and cheap ones do not always perform poorly. There are many well-known companies on the market, but sometimes there are also small ones that are trying to gain fame and popularity with high-quality and more affordable models.
I would probably include Thermaltake in the first category, which produces a lot of accessories for modding, power supplies, cases and, of course, coolers. Perhaps the most famous cooler of this company is the legendary Typhoon, which helped overclock older processors for 939 and 775 sockets for Pentiums. A lot of time has passed, but many users do not change, and some even buy it. In this review, I picked up a competitor to Typhoon from the Noctua camp, the NH-U12P cooler. The company has been selling its products in Western Europe for a long time, but is practically not widespread here in Ukraine.
Perhaps, today there is a situation where you can buy a good processor for the right amount of money... and then significantly, let’s say, speed it up. For this we must thank modern technology, and in particular Intel, which has released a very successful architecture. For more or less reasonable prices, we must thank AMD, which is trying to survive in this market segment. Well, these companies, in turn, should thank us for buying their processors.

Test platform and testing conditions.

So, let's finish the introduction, let's move on to practice. For testing I used the following system:
ProcessorIntel Core 2 Quad Q6600(G0)
Motherboard ASUS P5K Premium/WiFi-AP
CoolersThermaltake Big Typhoon 120 VX,
Noctua NH-U12P
RAM GOODRAM 2 GB DDR2 800 MHz x2(4GB)
Video cardgigabyte X800gto 256mb+ Zalman VF700-Cu
Hard driveSeagate ST3750330AS 750gb
Power supply Thermaltake ToughPower 750W
Drive ASUS DRW-1814
Case Cooler Master Elite 331 (1x12 cm blow-in)
UPSAPC Back-UPS CS 500
Operating systemWindows Vista 64bit sp1

The day before I did a preliminary setup of the system and a stability test. I must admit, I was unable to overclock the processor to frequency 3.6. More precisely, it was possible, but the system worked in OSST for about an hour, and then I observed the “screen of death.” And this happened several times. Perhaps the reason was due to overheating of the northbridge, although this is not known for sure. But I set myself the task of pushing the maximum while maintaining FULL stability, and when the system worked stably for 6 hours, I considered the overclocking successful.

So, with FSB 400, the multiplier was 8, the final frequency was 3.2. Memory divider 1:1, effective frequency – 800 MHz. BIOS settings:
CPU voltage 1.4
CPU PLL voltage 1.6
FSB termination voltage 1.3
DRAM voltage 1.8
NB voltage 1.4
SB voltage 1.05
Load Line Calibration(VDroop) Enabled
CPU GTL Voltage Reference 0.63x
All other settings are set to AUTO. Fan control is disabled except for a few tests.

core voltage

Well, now let's move on to the experimental ones:
P.S. I won’t dwell on cardboard and plastic boxes, but I will note that the Taufun’s packaging looks more solid in appearance; read about the packaging below:

The heat dissipation of modern processors increases with the release of each new model, the requirements for the efficiency of CPU cooling systems also increase almost linearly, so the presence of heat pipes in air coolers is gradually becoming a de facto standard. Today, almost all well-known manufacturers of cooling systems for central processors have coolers built on heat pipes in their lineup. Thus, systems from Gigabyte, ASUS, Scythe, CoolerMaster, etc. have already been reviewed on the site, and even the recognized aluminum guru, GlacialTech, has released Igloo 5600PWM (though so far only for LGA 775), the design of which is also based on heat pipes. In turn, the conference has created and is quite actively growing the most productive air coolers, including those based on heat pipes, where calls are constantly heard to compare all the monsters in one article, and, finally, determine the best of them. Let me make a reservation right away that such large-scale testing is not planned, but today we will introduce you to three representatives of this type of cooling systems and evaluate their effectiveness in comparison with the Zalman CNPS9500 LED and the standard AMD Athlon 64 3000+ boxed cooler (Socket 939).

So, today’s article will look at two representatives of the Titan company – Vanessa S-type and Vanessa L-type and one, but very large cooler from Thermaltake – Big Typhoon. In the process of describing the coolers, their design features will be indicated, the technical characteristics and components of the delivery set will be listed, the CPU cooling efficiency will be checked, and a subjective assessment of the noise emitted by the cooler fans will be carried out. In my opinion, the introduction is enough; it’s time to move on to the description of the first participant in today’s tests – Titan Vanessa S-type.

1. Titan Vanessa S-type (NK15TB/SC (RB))

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The first cooler we are reviewing today comes in a very beautiful box made of thick cardboard. The dimensions of the box (26.5 x 20 x 10 cm, L x W x H) are clearly not typical for packaging of such cooling devices. The front side depicts a rather pretty girl with butterfly wings, made, judging by the style and color, of silver metal:

IntroductionAfter both leading processor manufacturers announced the end of the gigahertz race, users who were hoping that their new PC would finally be truly fast and quiet were briefly relieved. The most optimistic of them hoped that Intel would finally make the Dothan family of processors available to the masses, but this, unfortunately, did not happen. Instead of one “heat generator under the hood,” both Intel and AMD offered two! The issue of increasing productivity was solved by a banal method that is known to everyone from the first grade - addition. If it is impossible to further increase the frequency and thereby achieve a noticeable increase in performance, then one of the simplest ways is to increase performance by parallelizing computational threads. The fact that this is of little use today for an ordinary home machine, to put it mildly, worries absolutely no one. Both trendsetters in the CPU market need sales, and the new “dual-core” concept is quite capable of providing them. However, it is the manufacturers of cooling systems who will say the biggest thanks for such titanic efforts to promote multi-core processors to the masses, which few people really need at home. It's no joke - the appearance and total area of ​​the processor itself remained without any changes, and all that increased was performance and heating. Moreover, if you can argue about the first one for a long time - the average user will practically not notice any increase in a number of typical multimedia and gaming applications, but with heat dissipation everything is very transparent - it has increased quite significantly. By and large, we still need to say thank you for the fact that by doubling the number of cores, the developers failed to double the final heat dissipation of the entire structure. However, even what happened as a result was enough to bring such air-cooling giants as Zalman 7000Cu and Zalman 7700CU to their knees. This is expressed in the fact that if the latter is still capable of keeping the temperature of a dual-core Intel Pentium Extreme Edition with a clock frequency of only 2.8 GHz, but based on the SmithField core, around 75-80 degrees at an ambient temperature of 20-22 degrees, then for the 7000CU this task no longer possible - the temperature exceeded 85°C, after which we stopped further experiments with it. The situation with new processors is practically no different from that with the latest revisions of the Intel Pentium 4 on the Prescott core - the speed of heat removal from the processor core plays a very important role. There are two options left - either use a cooler with heat pipes, with a separate base and radiator, or a water cooling system. The price of such a choice, today, differs by approximately two times - the average price level for ready-made coolers is approximately twice as high as that for top models of coolers with heat pipes. We are in no way going to ignore the topic of water cooling systems and plan to devote one of our next reviews to it, but today our focus is on air coolers - 4 different, but nevertheless very worthy models that very well illustrate the state of affairs on the market for similar devices. Moreover - apparently, even Intel is not going to abandon classic cooling systems in the near future - the BTX standard provides for air coolers, albeit of a somewhat unusual design. Among the main trends that prevail today in this sector of the market, in addition to the quality of cooling and minimizing noise levels, we can note such as a significant increase in the dimensions of the radiator and a noticeable emphasis on the aesthetic component. Manufacturers of even inexpensive COs seem to have realized that a consumer who buys such a utilitarian item as a cooling system for a processor for quite a significant amount of money has the right, at least, to count on at least a pleasant appearance of his purchase. However, in those matters that relate to appearance, few can argue with Thermaltake products - its solutions have always pleased the buyer with their original design. The tradition is also observed in the company's latest line of coolers - our guests today are no exception, and any of them will look good in the now popular cases with a side window. As for the overall characteristics, the user will not have any special problems here either - he will not have to specially select a case for the cooler he likes. All models fit quite well in a standard ATX case.
There are different approaches to assessing the efficiency of processor coolers, but the most optimal method will be one that is close to “combat” conditions.

Testing methodology

To evaluate the efficiency of coolers, we assembled a top-end modern PC in the following configuration -

Intel i955X motherboard;
Processor Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 2.8 GHz (SmithField Core);
RAM 2x512 MB DDR2 Kingston KHX5400D2/512;
Video card ATI Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition 256 MB;
Hard drive: Western Digital WD1600JB;
NEC ND-3540A (Black);
Power supply Zippy HP2-6460P;
Thermaltake Armor VA8000BWS case.

The case was not chosen by chance - it is one of the most convenient cases for assembling the system, characterized by a productive and quiet ventilation system.
Testing was carried out in two modes – Idle(simple system) and Burn(2 copies of CPU Burn are running).
To take processor temperature readings, we used the program Motherboard Monitor version 5.3.7.0.
The room temperature during testing was 21°C and did not change throughout testing.
To test all coolers, we used KTP-8 thermal paste, which was not included in the kit.
The noise level was assessed subjectively, with the remaining fans completely stopped, and was separately stated in the conclusions for each participant. We did not carry out instrumental measurements, because as practice has shown, dry numbers practically do not allow us to adequately compare two different coolers.
Perhaps that's enough theory - let's take a closer look at the testing participants -

Thermaltake Big Typhoon (CL-P0114)

Our testing opens with one of the largest coolers in the company’s lineup - Big Typhoon is a completely typical modern solution in the field of cooler design for the “very best” processors. To a person who has not followed this sector of the market for a couple of years, such dimensions may seem simply enormous - in just one box you can easily pack three or four ordinary coolers from two years ago.

If you look at the clothes, then there are no complaints - the packaging is in the best traditions of the genre. In addition to the cooler itself, the box contains a small black box -

A neat box with the name of the cooler contains a set of universal fasteners, two leaflets with instructions and a bag of thermal paste.

The fastener set is implemented very well - it allows you to install Big Typhoon on almost all modern boards, and you practically do not need a screwdriver for assembly. In order to ensure the safety of the motherboard, the kit includes two rubber gaskets that completely follow the shape of the metal mounting plates.

The gaskets, unfortunately, are not reusable - once installed, they wrinkle and become very thin.
Also, separately in the bag there is a special compact fastener designed for installing the cooler on boards with Socket LGA 775 and dense placement of components.
It is a set of three elements -

And after assembly it turns into a compact design, which is only slightly larger in size than the cooler itself -

Despite its visually large dimensions and somewhat unusual layout, technically, Big Typhoon is a completely traditional design for cooling systems of this type.

Nothing new - a copper base, a set of heat pipes and a large plate radiator.
All this is blown by a proprietary 120mm Thermaltake fan with a fairly low rotation speed of 1300 rpm.

At first glance, the rotation speed is small, but taking into account the total area of ​​the radiator and the size of the fan, it is more than sufficient - the air flow that it creates, passing through the radiator, blows almost the entire upper part of the motherboard - the chipset radiator, memory modules, power system mosfets processor and even the back of the video card.
There are no innovations in the design of the radiator -

A massive copper base with clamped heat pipes and a radiator with aluminum plates. Classic design with an optimal combination of weight-dimensional characteristics and efficiency. The use of copper fins in this case is simply impractical - the radiator will be very heavy, and not every motherboard will be able to withstand its installation.
Separate radiator design –

It is divided into two parts, each of which serves 3 heat pipes. Both parts are additionally secured by a frame on which the fan is mounted.
The quality of base processing is average –

The base is matte, and the marks from the cutter are clearly visible. However, for modern processors with their own heat distribution covers, such treatment is quite enough - if you don’t set a goal to win every fraction of a degree with blood, then you won’t have to polish the base.
The cooler is quite easily mounted on the motherboard -

Thanks to the radiator placed upward on the heat pipes and convenient fasteners, installing it is quite a simple task and does not require much time. Big Typhoon is perfect for those motherboards that either do not have too much space near the processor socket, or are equipped with large northbridge radiators - the shape of the base and the mounting kit allows you to install it on a board with almost any arrangement of elements without any problems. The only thing that might be limiting is the case - anything less than full ATX won't do.
The system fit into Thermaltake Armor without any problems, which is not surprising - the case is clearly capable of accommodating any existing CO without any problems.

Subjective impressions of Big Typhoon are very pleasant - despite its impressive dimensions, it has a fairly convenient mounting system, is light in weight and practically does not create problems when installed on the motherboard. Taking into account the overall set of characteristics, you can safely count on the successful completion of the test program -

The results are very impressive - the temperature of such a hot processor in full load mode is only 63°C, this is more than an excellent indicator. The temperature in idle mode is nothing special to comment on - the processor is practically cold. Taking into account the fact that it is simply impossible to warm up the processor with ordinary user applications the way CPU Burn does, we can say with confidence that in the hot summer in an ordinary unconditioned room, the cooler will not allow even one of the most powerful processors to overheat of today. Moreover, even if the system is assembled in a case of a classical design, the Big Typhoon’s performance reserve is quite enough to ensure the normal functioning of the system.
As for the noise level, in a conventional classical system it is almost unnoticeable. A rotation speed of 1300 rpm is clearly not enough to create any noticeable noise, and long heat pipes perfectly act as dampers and easily dampen all vibrations. With case fans completely stopped, you can hear a quiet rumble created by the cooler's roller bearings. You can easily get rid of this drawback if you slow down the fan speed to 1000-1100 rpm. In this case, the efficiency drops slightly, but the noise practically disappears.
To summarize, we can say that the purchase of Thermaltake Big Typhoon, in addition to the fact that the user receives a cooling system with an excellent set of characteristics, will also be an excellent long-term investment - the cooler is quite capable of surviving one or even two platform changes, even if the heat dissipation of the processors will grow at the same rate.

Thermaltake Big Typhoon

+ Excellent cooling quality, convenient mounting design, almost silent operation.

- Not found.

= An excellent choice if you need a good air cooler that can be installed on any modern platform without any problems.

Estimated price - $42.

Thermaltake Sonic Tower (CL-P0071)

Our acquaintance with the Thermaltake cooler lineup continues with a very original design with a slightly strange name - Sonic Tower. It is a large passive type radiator. A very bold decision, considering the level of heat emission of modern processors - as a rule, manufacturers prefer not to take risks and still equip their products with at least low-speed fans. The meaning of the name is somewhat unclear - why “Sound Tower”? After all, the passive design is completely silent, and this name is somewhat incompatible with the design of the radiator. Apparently, the manufacturer simply had no choice - the more appropriate name “Silent Tower” is already occupied by one of the company’s earlier products.
The box is not inferior in size to that of Big Typhoon -

The delivery package is also very similar -

The only difference is two additional brackets for mounting a 120mm fan, which did not fit into the cardboard box with fasteners. There is nothing unusual in boxing itself -

Instructions and set of fasteners. The mount is designed in such a way that the clamping bar on the radiator is universal and can be used for all platforms. There is even a set of fasteners for the K7 platform, although only for the holes near the socket, which is quite understandable - the mass of the radiator is more than noticeable, and it is simply impossible to attach it directly to the socket itself. Moreover, the fastening screws are special, with a hex head, which is also included in the kit.

The radiator has a quite familiar design -

Roughly speaking, it resembles a Big Typhoon radiator turned upward with a slightly increased fin area. The aluminum fins start almost from the base of the cooler, which is somewhat inconvenient and can create a number of problems with installing it on the motherboard.
The processing of the base is quite mediocre, just like the previous participant.

Thermaltake did not make a completely passive cooling system without even leaving the possibility of installing a fan -

The neat holes in the radiator fins are designed specifically for installing aluminum corners, to which any 120mm fan you like is attached. The corners are secured with screws, and during this process it is almost impossible to avoid slight deformation of the upper ribs –

This has virtually no effect on efficiency, because this part of the radiator, when installing a fan, still ends up in the dead zone and is not blown. The appearance with the installed corner remains virtually unchanged -

After both corners are installed, you can attach the fan. However, when looking at the rather large lower part of the radiator, we had a number of doubts about the possibility of mounting it on a test board, which were completely confirmed -

The bottom corner rested against the chipset heatsink, making it impossible to install the heatsink. After thinking a little, we decided to limit ourselves to only the upper corner, deciding that that would be enough.

After removing the lower corner, the radiator fit normally onto the board and was secured without any problems. We temporarily borrowed the fan from Big Typhoon - it is just the right size and has a very low noise level. As we expected, one corner for mounting the cooler is quite enough -

Problems arose when we tried to install the entire structure on the board -

The radiator with the installed fan completely blocked the first memory slot on the motherboard. In our case, this is not yet very critical - the bar fits into the adjacent slot with a little effort, but it still fits. But on other boards with more dense placement of components, there may be problems with installing the radiator. In addition, it is worth paying special attention to the placement and height of the chipset cooling system - the Sonic Tower has very low radiator fins, which creates a number of problems that are sometimes insoluble without instrumental intervention when installed on motherboards smaller than Full ATX.
In Armor the system becomes simply perfect -

The placement is truly optimal - the radiator is located just opposite the exhaust fan, which, in fact, creates an ideal picture of the placement of the passive cooling system. The air flow created by two 120mm coolers is more than enough for the radiator to operate in passive mode. Those for whom this is not enough can use a system with a fan installed -

This configuration provides perhaps the most efficient scheme - the air coming from the intake fan is blown through the radiator and immediately exhausted outside the case. It will most likely not be possible to seriously compete with Big Typhoon, but, apparently, the developers did not set such a goal.
We present the results in two modes – completely passive and with a fan installed –

The final picture is impressive - in passive mode the temperature was only 72 degrees! The result for just a radiator, albeit a large one, is more than outstanding.
With the fan installed, the results almost completely replicate those of the Big Typhoon, which is not surprising - these two cooling systems are very similar in design and only slightly differ in heat transfer area, which in this case turned out to be unimportant.
Without a doubt, the main trump card of this radiator is the ability to work in passive mode, and given the price, it has practically no competitors in this regard. But for the full functioning of Sonic Tower, you need a high-quality case with good ventilation of the area around the processor, otherwise its advantages are simply neutralized.
It’s impossible to call it a real alternative to the Big Typhoon - both in passive mode and with an installed fan without airflow, the chipset heatsink, power system mosfets and memory modules remain. In our case, thanks to the well-organized ventilation of the case, overheating of these components was not observed, but, unfortunately, we cannot guarantee this in a different configuration.
As for noise issues, the situation is simple - in passive mode there is simply no noise, and with an installed fan the situation is similar to that of the Big Typhoon, from which the fan was borrowed. In our opinion, it is simply pointless to operate Sonic Tower with a cooler installed - it is easier to immediately purchase Big Typhoon, which has noticeably greater functionality.

As a conclusion, we can say that Thermaltake has very successfully proven the possibility of using passive cooling systems on modern processors. The only thing is that even if there is a normal case, the presence of an air conditioner is highly desirable. However, if you do not have a top-end dual-core processor, then the last recommendation can be omitted.

Thermaltake Sonic Tower

+ Passive radiator, good set of fasteners, fairly low cost, possibility of installing a fan.

- A number of installation problems caused by the large dimensions of the radiator.

= One of the best passive cooling systems available on the market.

Estimated price - $30.

Thermaltake Silent Tower (CL-P0025)

Next on the list is a model that has been on the market for quite a significant period of time - Thermaltake Silent Tower is a classic implementation of the usual heatpipe cooler. The box looks quite small compared to its predecessors -

The delivery set is already familiar - the cooler itself and the box with fasteners -

The scope of delivery and fasteners is almost exactly the same as that of the Big Typhoon -

The only difference is the instructions and the included thermal paste.
The design, as we mentioned, is classic - a rectangular radiator with three heat pipes.

The base is quite compact, so there will be no problems with installing Silent Tower on the motherboard -

It is processed in the same way as the two previous coolers -

As we expected, the cooler fits quite comfortably on the motherboard.

There is more than enough distance left to both the radiator and the memory modules -

Inside the case, the cooler looks quite modest -

If we compare him with previous test participants, there is even too much space around him. However, as it turned out, this has little effect on efficiency.

The results are pretty good. The time-tested design is by no means going to lose ground - given the noticeable loss in heat transfer area, Silent Tower is only slightly behind the test leaders. A powerful fan with a rotation speed of 2500 rpm helped him significantly in this. In addition to the fact that this is the fastest cooler in testing, it is also equipped with an original fan design with side slots, which, according to the manufacturer, increase efficiency. Strictly speaking, there are no complaints about this - its efficiency is quite decent. However, this is not the only characteristic that we evaluated - there is also noise. Here everything is a little worse than expected. Undoubtedly, as part of a conventional system with classic 80mm coolers that have a similar speed, its noise will be simply unnoticeable. But in our case, against the background of almost inaudible case fans, it was audible very well. In general, we can say that the cooler is perfect for a typical configuration, but if it is used as part of a system focused on maximum quiet operation, some modification will be required.
The conclusions about the cooler are simple - a classic design, optimally suited for mid-range systems. It is problematic to recommend it for cooling the fastest processors - the noise level is too high and the presence of more powerful competitors. However, if the noise doesn’t bother you, then with a little “tuning with a file” the cooler can noticeably improve its characteristics, which cannot be said about the two previous participants, the only question is the feasibility of such modifications - for the money that is asked for the Silent Tower, you can buy a Sonic Tower, which has significantly more capabilities.

Thermaltake Silent Tower

+ Small size, good efficiency, ease of installation.

- Quite noisy (relatively) fan.

= A classic implementation of a cooler with heatpipe technology, which is by no means going to give up its position without a fight.

Estimated price - $29.

Thermaltake PIPE101 Rev.2 (CL-P0006)

Our four participants are rounded off by a rather unusual solution with the somewhat nomenclature name PIPE101 Rev.2. Selling a radiator, which was originally designed to accommodate a fan, without one, is a somewhat unusual move for the mass consumer market. Unlike Sonic Tower, the design simply does not provide for the operation of PIPE101 without a fan. However, many will find such a solution quite justified - the ability to choose a fan according to their needs is a rather convenient option, and since Thermaltake products are initially designed for enthusiasts, this approach can only be welcomed. The radiator itself is quite compact, so the box with the cooler is quite small.

The delivery set is similar to the rest of the test participants - the radiator itself and a small box with the name of the cooler -

The box contains a set of fasteners, instructions and thermal paste.

The mounting kit is chosen quite well, since the overall dimensions and weight of the radiator are relatively small, there are no special features in the form of reinforcing plates on the back side of the board - they are simply not necessary. Everything is more than traditional, the usual clips for Socket 478 -

Apparently, the manufacturer does not consider half a kilogram of the pure weight of the radiator alone to be a sufficient reason to include in the delivery set also fasteners that use holes near the socket. However, if we take into account the fact that not all motherboards for the Socket A platform have such holes, then this approach looks quite reasonable.
The radiator itself is entirely copper with four heat pipes.

The design is quite classic, but the benefit of heat pipes is not entirely obvious here - the radiator is already a single whole, so their role is reduced to additional heat transfer to the upper part of the fins. In this case, heat pipes are nothing more than an auxiliary element necessary for the most uniform removal of heat from the base of the radiator. The base, in turn, does not differ in ideal processing, like the rest of the testing participants.

As we have already mentioned, for modern processors with heat distribution covers, such a parameter as a perfectly flat base surface is not critical. However, taking into account the weight and size characteristics of the radiator and its cost, it has a chance to become quite popular among users of the Socket A platform, and in this case, the quality of the base processing matters quite a lot. However, those users of this platform who are not satisfied with the standard cooler are quite difficult to scare off with such a procedure as polishing the base.
For testing, we installed a 92mm Thermaltake fan with a rotation speed of 1800 rpm.

In theory, installing a faster fan should improve performance, but even at 1800 rpm. The hum from the cooler is already quite noticeable, and creating another noise generator was not at all part of our plans.
When assembled, the system is quite compact, and the user will not have any problems placing the board in any modern case.

Compared to other participants, PIPE101 looks very small - against the background of 120mm case fans it simply got lost. As for efficiency issues, the results are quite good -

74 degrees for such a compact cooler with a not very efficient fan is a result that deserves at least respect. Undoubtedly, recommending it as a good option specifically for top processors is quite problematic - the result of 74 degrees was achieved at a fairly low ambient temperature, and to repeat this requires, at a minimum, the user to have an air conditioner, which does not always correspond to reality. Thermaltake PIPE101 Rev.2 will be a pretty good choice for a mid-level system with a not very powerful CPU, and judging by the price, it is positioned in this sector.
As for the noise level, there is nothing special to say - it depends on the type of fan installed. In our case, there was practically no noise in a closed case - it did not exceed the noise level of standard case fans. If you stop them, there is still some noise from the cooler. There is no point in focusing too much attention on this - in a normal system, the noise of a processor cooler in an assembly similar to ours will most likely simply be unnoticeable. In all other cases, the type of fan installed will decide everything.
PIPE101 will probably appeal most to fans of the Socket A platform - its potential capabilities are more than enough to cool any processor for this platform while maintaining absolute silence.

Thermaltake PIPE101 Rev.2

+ Small overall dimensions, a classic set of fasteners, the ability to select a fan.

- Not the best design for cooling modern top-end processors.

= Not a bad cooler for mid-range systems.

Estimated price - $30.

Summarizing

To summarize, we can say that, in general, all participants, to one degree or another, successfully passed the test. For a more visual assessment, we suggest you familiarize yourself with the summary diagram of the test results -

The division of coolers into two groups is quite clearly visible - leaders and laggards. The leaders confidently keep the temperature under load at around 65 degrees and below, while the rest fail to drop below 72. However, by and large, the only one lagging behind is Thermaltake PIPE101 Rev.2. Its design does not allow it to compete on equal terms with modern solutions that feature massive radiators, and even an all-copper design with heat pipes is not able to save the situation - the final heat transfer area is too small. As for the 72 degrees of the Sonic Tower in passive mode, these results are incomparable with those of the PIPE101 for obvious reasons.
As a matter of fact, it is Sonic Tower that deserves the title of leader in testing - a completely passive radiator that can cope with such a hot processor - a rarity on the market. And if you look at its cost, then all questions disappear completely - given its capabilities, it is simply unrealistic to find an alternative to it in this parameter. The only thing that can stop a potential buyer is the noticeable overall dimensions of the cooler. If you don’t want to worry about the size of the radiator and possible problems with installation, but still need to purchase a good air cooler, pay attention to Big Typhoon. Costing $10 more than the Sonic Tower, it has a classic design, is practically equal in terms of heat transfer area and has very good functionality. As for the difference in price, it is quite justified - one 120m fan of this class will cost no less than the same $10.
We cannot recommend Silent Tower, as well as PIPE101, as universal cooling systems - it is better not to purchase them for cooling top-end processors.

I have two impressions about Thermaltake and its products. On the one hand, this is unconditional respect for the manufacturer, who brought the production of coolers (and subsequently other cooling devices) into a separate branch of computer equipment. At one time, the buyer had a simple choice: either a standard piece of aluminum with a fan, or a cooler made by ThermalTake, which provided significantly better cooling efficiency. Let me remind you that this was the time when the first systems on the AMD SocketA platform appeared on the market, which were very favorably received by overclockers and computer enthusiasts. Since such processors were easily overclocked, the need for powerful cooling systems increased manifold. And Thermaltake very successfully released a series of Orb series coolers.

Subsequently, other companies began to enter the cooling device market, trying to grab their piece of the sweet pie (or get a share of the fast-growing market:). But ThermalTake tried not to lose its leadership, and constantly offered more and more new products. Currently, the company's product range is very large, ranging from housings to water cooling systems.

However, after a certain point, I stopped liking Tt products, and some products looked like outright hackwork (high price, high noise level and low efficiency). In particular, not a single Thermaltake product has received a positive rating in our reviews recently.

Therefore, I was somewhat distrustful of the Thermaltake Big Typhoon cooler, which was included in today's test by pure chance (there were no other coolers with heat pipes in the nearest computer stores). Marveling at the price (more than 1200 rubles) and impressed by the mass and dimensions of the cooler, I agreed on the obligatory moneyback and began the inspection.

Like most other coolers, Big Typhoon is packaged in a transparent plastic box:

In addition to the cooler itself, in the box we found a mounting kit for all popular platforms (LGA775, S478, S939754) and colorful installation instructions on two glossy sheets.

As we have already noted, the cooler is striking in its size:

To better illustrate its dimensions, here is a photo of Big Typhoon installed on the Asus P5WD2-Premium motherboard (based on the i955X chipset).

The design of the cooler is fundamentally no different from similar products. So we have a copper base from which six heat pipes emerge:

The tubes rise up and enter the aluminum radiator:

The radiator has a metal frame

On which a giant 120mm fan is mounted:

To prevent body parts, or, God forbid, computer cables and cables from getting into the fan, a protective grille is installed on the fan.

Let's list the technical characteristics of the fan: rotation speed 1300RPM, generated air flow 54.4CFM, and noise level 16dBa! To be honest, I didn't watch those. characteristics before the first launch of the system with the Big Typhoon cooler, and was very surprised by the silent operation of the fan (if you listen very carefully, you can only distinguish the rustle of air). I saw the last silent fan produced by Thermaltake only in the Aquarius II water cooling system (the copy was from the first batches).

Now let's look at the quality of processing of the base, for which we can give a "strong four":

The last thing we will focus on is a description of the installation procedure. To be brief, a metal reinforcing plate is installed on the back of the motherboard. 4 threaded studs are installed through it, which are secured with special nuts. Next, a cooler is installed on the processor, on the base of which the same metal frame is placed. The studs pass through the holes in this plate and a second set of nuts are installed on them.

In general, the procedure is a little tricky, but when you hold the fastener kit in your hands, everything becomes intuitive. However, we note two points that arose for us. Firstly, on the Asus P5WD2 Premium board there were huge tin plaques on the back side of the board that interfered with the installation of the reinforcement plate. I remember we encountered a similar problem on some Gigabyte board, and we modified the board with a file. But we felt sorry for P5WD2, and we simply added an additional spacer:

By the way, if the P5WD2 board had an additional plate installed. Stack Cool cooling, then such a problem did not arise. However, in order to save money (or for other reasons), Asus stopped installing such plates, and limited itself to only the inscription on the board (which, of course, will not make it any colder).

Another point concerns the tightening of the second set of nuts. This operation can be performed in a matter of seconds if, having previously tightened the nuts, press down each side of the plate, and with a couple of movements turn the nut several turns.