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WooHoo! It's party time ppl. This morning we  received a letter from the High Court and we now have a date for our appeal against the review monkey. We are not out of the woods yet, but God willing, we may be able to overturn the judgment and stick it to our simian chum. BIG TIME.

It is with such thoughts in our hearts that we set off on our latest cooling quest. I'm sure you've heard the phrase: "strap a Delta on it and it'll really kick ass", but is this true? Of course increased airflow will be able to dissipate more heat but how effectively? Does the noise associated with our Deltine friend outweigh the performance gains and does the heatsink itself make any difference, or is it really down to what beast you can't stand on top of it? Questions, questions.

We decided to steal the fan from the top of the CAK 38 that we had lying around. We are pretty sure it is (but cannot guarantee) a Delta 60mm fan spinning at 6800RPM pushing 37.6CFM. Unfortunately it has a 3 to 4 pin connector and therefore we weren't able to use our old friend, the Via Hardware Monitor to verify it's speed (and we couldn't see any markings on it either). It could be a 6000 RPM Pabst fan but whatever the exact specifications, assume that is a high performance fan and we will refer to it as a Delta. This is the fan that we used to test every one of the heatsinks. O.K., let's meet today's contestants -

Generic

Generic

Power Cooler PCH 113

Power Cooler PCH 075

Coolermaster EP5-6I11

Coolermaster DP5-6H51

Coolermaster CB5-5G12

Taisol CGK 742092

Neng KA 02

All pretty average performers, but this fits our requirements perfectly - as the more efficient hsf generally come with a high speed Delta on board. The selection above have a range of low profile and under-powered fans so they should get a great benefit from the Delta.

Test Rig

Our highly scientific approach tends to be compromised by a number of factors. Chiefly that we don't have a scientific approach. Our aim is to provide a real world test, i.e. to simulate the experience that you would have if you had bought these heatsinks. Therefore, we will take measurements from the onboard temp gauge under the cpu and decibel readings but these are not under lab conditions.

The ambient room temperature was kept at 22C +/- 1C (ta BlitZ), if this changed we stopped testing until it had returned to this base level.

Installation

The installation was the same as in the individual reviews. There were no real problems with case clearance with the Delta on top. The only heatsink that the Delta did not fit was the Coolermaster CB5-5G12 which was way too small for it. I therefore rigged up a sort of clamping mechanism to, quite literally, strap the Delta on top! As ever, we cleaned and prepped the core after each test.

Noise

The Delta is one noisy little ho, so check out it's stats. Yes, it really does sound like a hairdryer in your rig. No, don't believe anyone that tries to tell you otherwise. Yes, they are loud. No, they aren't quiet. Didn't hear me? Yes, they are loud.

What did I say?

Stock fans

For all the tests, we decided that we were only interested in the full load temperature under the hottest conditions that we could provide. So, we ran the cpu at 945 mhz (9*105) @ 1.85v which should be generating around 48 watts of heat. Smokin'.

This is how each of the boys shaped up when using their stock fans and Seti@home to run the CPU at 100% for 30 mins.

Not much to comment upon here that wasn't said in their individual reviews. The spread is 10*C and the cpu was unable to run @ this speed using the generic hsfs. Let's hold 'em down and strap on the bad boy, ready for more alien number crunching. Let's go...

Immediately we can see the temps plummet, the average fall is a stunning 9*C which is really helped out by the CB5's 16*C drop. The spread is down to a paltry 4*C with no real surprises to the order, generic bringing up the rear and the EP5 heading the pack.

We decided to test a second time using CPU stability test 6.0, instead of Seti to put the CPU under full load. I have read that Seti was using the CPU at around 85% and the CPU warming part of the stability tester could guarantee 100%. This will be an interesting indication of Seti's performance and give a rough guide for future reviews as we are now going to use CPU tester exclusively over Seti. The CPU was warmed for 10 minutes.

The spread is still at 4*C with a bit of an order change but nothing out of the ordinary, remembering our +/- 1*C margin for error. The final outcome of this test seems to be that the new program is able to get the CPU to a higher temp than Seti which, on average is able to get to 93% of the Stability temperature.

The best performers through all the tests were the Coolermaster EP5-6I11, Power Cooler PCH 075 and the Taisol CGK 742092. They were out in front but only by a degree or so.

Conclusion

The results speak for themselves. It is painfully obvious that the true key to cooling the CPU is the fan. Our contingent were originally kitted out with low profile, low cfm but just as importantly low noise fans. They are fine for stock work but really need a Delta to cut the mustard under more harsh conditions. I was very impressed by the CB5's performance throughout. It looked a bit odd with the Delta actually strapped on top but the copper base proved to be a great asset as it was able to beat a lot of much larger heatsinks.

The upshot of the whole article is this, if you want to increase your cooler's performance at a low cost, buy a Delta (for about £5) and watch those temperatures drop. Heatsink choice under the Delta seems to relatively academic, the "better" sinks only perform marginally better than the rest.

It is also a question of noise, this fan really is a brain driller. There is no respite from the aggressive sound and power down fills you with relief, well it does for me at any rate. My advice to you would be: get a Delta, they are cheap, and try your old sink with it before you buy anything else if you can stand the noise then you will have saved £20.

The worst that will happen is you aren't impressed and go and get a new unit. It's a very cheap tweak for a huge performance gain.

The final Chillblast rating for the Delta is WAY COOL =)

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