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Product: FOP 38 heatsink & fan
Manufacturer: Global Win
Homepage: www.GlobalWin.com.tw
To say that we are buckling under the weight of coolers round here is a slight understatement. Today, we have received another 7.... 7? How long can this keep up? If only I had this problem with graphics cards (or money). Less whingeing and more er.. doing. Let's unleash the animal that is the Global Win FOP 38.
Let's compare it with the other reviewees.
From left to right: Fop38, Coolermaster DP5-6H51, Coolermaster CB5-5G12.
As you can see, it is the big daddy of the posse. A relatively standard heatsink with an extraordinarily deep fan. This bodes both well and badly.. but reasons later. More wildly subjective statements and few facts first. The Global Win product comes in a relatively plain white box with a graphic on the top. The cooler has a 3-to-4 pin adaptor already in place and the ever-present thermal pad waiting for removal. The adaptor is the first clue as to the nature of this beast and it really is one.
Test conditions
I know we put this in every cooler test but it is important - it shows that all reviews are conducted on the same system and can therefore have their results compared.
The system that the cooler was tested on:
Abit KT7A-RAID
Duron 700mhz
256mb PC100 generic
Voodoo 3 3000 PCI
Maxtor 6 Gig HD
You know the drill: our aim is to provide a real world test, i.e. to simulate the experience that you would have if you had bought this heatsink. Therefore, we will take measurements from the onboard temp gauge under the cpu and decibel readings but not under lab conditions.
The ambient room temperature was kept at 22c, if this changed we stopped testing until it had returned to this base level.
Fitting
I initially removed the thermal pad from the FOP as thermal paste has shown it's pedigree over the plasticine pal. The core was cleaned with Isopropyl alcohol and a cotton bud, a thin film of Arctic Silver II was applied and then the FOP was seated in position. The Global Win site has an attachment guide on it's site and I tried to follow the instructions. These were pretty straight-forward and it was nearly connected when , with a ping, the end of the clip fired off. There was no damage and I was able to re-attach it to the arm. The rest of the "procedure" was quite simple and the FOP was sitting atop the cpu ready for action. The mobo would not boot without a fan attached to the cpu header, so I connected an 80mm to the case to counter-act this.
WHAT?
Sorry, I can't hear you. Once the power went on, things became a bit blurry. Some overclocking veterans may sneer at me but the noise is extreme. I was finding it difficult to concentrate with such a noise coming from the case. The fan rotates at the 6,800 mark (I could not verify this as I was using the adaptor) and it really does sound like a hairdryer. The pitch is higher than the other coolers tested and it really adds to the effect.
The figures speak for themselves. Another hardware site had a mail from one of it's readers that for every 3 db, the noise, to the human ear is doubled. It had something to do with waves and as you may have guessed, I'm no Einstein so I'll be able to explain no more. The fact of the matter is this cooler is aggressively loud to the point of insanity. I have read in many forums that people think they aren't THAT loud. Absolute crap. It blocks out the tv, conversation, pretty much anything.
Bitchin
That's what was happening in the last paragraph but let's see what it's performance is like after such a poor start. As usual, the idle is taken 30 mins after start up and full load is another 30 mins of Seti@home. The cpu was running at it's default speed of 700 mhz at 1.6v for the first test.
We compared the FOP 38 against our best performer so far, the Coolermaster DP5-6H51. Frankly, this was a knock-out in the first. Really, they didn't even get to the ring! The FOP has smashed the levels that the Coolermaster had set with a reduction of 3C at idle and 6C under full load.
The extra test of 3D mark 2000 looped while Seti was in the background was not particularly good test, so we ran a custom looping benchmark of the cpu test only. The result was 1C increase after 10 mins and this was the increase for each test level, i.e. 700,900 and 945 mhz.
The next level we tested at was the 900mhz with 1.775v which would produce a lot more heat. Can the FOP match it's initial performance? Read on....
The FOP is not content to embarrass the opposition, it really rubs it in with a huge 10C difference under full load. The consensus is an extra 10C halves the life of your cpu, well the FOP has just doubled your Athlon's life. The results that we saw are nothing short of amazing.
We next gave it the task of keeping the rig stable at 945 mhz using 1.85v, but it just laughed in our faces. We ran for 12 hours perfectly, looped 3D mark for 1 hour (full benchmark) without a hitch.
The figures for this test closely mirrored those from the previous one, the FOP was supreme. It cooled with sufficient power to allow us to run at 45 mhz faster than the Coolermaster. I tried to increase the fastest level that the cpu reached before and managed 950 mhz (9.5*100) and 963 mhz (9*107) but these were both quite flaky. I personally think I need more voltage to get the cpu much higher but that is another story.
Conclusion
The conclusion? This would be the perfect air cooling solution if it were not for the extreme noise emitted by the fan. It has managed to decimate the Coolermaster champion for performance. For the serious overclocker, this is the way forward with the only caveat being the 6,800 rpm fan. It can allow you to run at levels that were previously untenable which is the main aim for most of us. If you can stand the noise, and many can, then go and get one now. It will cool your cpu beyond most coolers and is in an elite class of air coolers.
The final ChillBlast rating is *********
Global Win's site can be found at www.GlobalWin.com.tw
Many thanks to Rainbow components for the supply of this and many more of the Global Win's range that will be coming soon to the ChillBlast review section.