Nice reviews Wesley. Here's some things to consider for future HSF reviews...
1. There's a few coolers I'd love to see in your on-going list.. EnzoTech Ultra X, AeroCool Dominator, CoolerMaster Hyper Tx.
2. Tests performed inside some popular case (maybe an Antec P180). The reason is two-fold...
2a. Airflow environment - most of your audience probably has their motherboard mounted inside a case, not sitting out on thier desk or some open-air test-station. Some coolers may perform quite differently in a live environment.
2b. Operational Characteristics - many manufacturers of these heat-pipe units have a recommended orientation for the unit (maybe they used gravity-feed pipes? maybe the wick-feed pipes are gravity assisted?) At any rate, I'd like to KNOW if there's some cooling difference when the case is turned upright (tower design) vs. horizontal (test-bed, desktop).
3. Somewhat related to both 1 and 2 above, I'd like more info on the cooling (or heating, as the case may be) affect on things like the memory and MOSFETs (while mounted inside a case) with some top-fan design units thrown into the mix. Does blowing down over the mb help, or hurt? (down-blowing would tend to work against the nearby case fans that are trying to get air out of the box, and may be blowing HOT air down onto the mb, for example).
4. Clearance and fit issues on various popular motherboards.
...obviously it's a lot more hassle for the reviewer to install the mb into some case for each set of tests, but it would help answer some of the questions above. Might be a good basis for an article just to address these issues - you could maybe just test the top 2 or 3 Flat-Tower designs, the top 2 or 3 Box-Tower designs (these typically have pipes running in two directions), a couple of Top-Fan designs and maybe throw in a Zalman Tunnel design for good measure.
Thanks.
1. There's a few coolers I'd love to see in your on-going list.. EnzoTech Ultra X, AeroCool Dominator, CoolerMaster Hyper Tx.
2. Tests performed inside some popular case (maybe an Antec P180). The reason is two-fold...
2a. Airflow environment - most of your audience probably has their motherboard mounted inside a case, not sitting out on thier desk or some open-air test-station. Some coolers may perform quite differently in a live environment.
2b. Operational Characteristics - many manufacturers of these heat-pipe units have a recommended orientation for the unit (maybe they used gravity-feed pipes? maybe the wick-feed pipes are gravity assisted?) At any rate, I'd like to KNOW if there's some cooling difference when the case is turned upright (tower design) vs. horizontal (test-bed, desktop).
3. Somewhat related to both 1 and 2 above, I'd like more info on the cooling (or heating, as the case may be) affect on things like the memory and MOSFETs (while mounted inside a case) with some top-fan design units thrown into the mix. Does blowing down over the mb help, or hurt? (down-blowing would tend to work against the nearby case fans that are trying to get air out of the box, and may be blowing HOT air down onto the mb, for example).
4. Clearance and fit issues on various popular motherboards.
...obviously it's a lot more hassle for the reviewer to install the mb into some case for each set of tests, but it would help answer some of the questions above. Might be a good basis for an article just to address these issues - you could maybe just test the top 2 or 3 Flat-Tower designs, the top 2 or 3 Box-Tower designs (these typically have pipes running in two directions), a couple of Top-Fan designs and maybe throw in a Zalman Tunnel design for good measure.
Thanks.