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Thermaltake SonicTower

Originally posted by: Henny
Originally posted by: Howard
I would suggest something else.
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Use the Tuniq Tower (it's currently best of class)
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Tuniq tower is maybe better, but sonic tower is not bad, cheap 120cm fan and good airflow and this heatsink is awesome, quite good performance and very very easy to install (i have my own method for instaling it in less than 5 minutes for socket 939, opening the packet takes longer 😛)

EDIT: in case u havent guessed i have sonic tower heatsink on my main comp. With ambient temp of 20 idles at 32 - 34C load 42C. Thats not with Arctic silver 5, just some cheap 25% silver thermal paste. Also the cooler is lighter than it looks, most of the weight is in the coper base, so it does not warp ur board. This cooler works great for me and i would sertainly recomend it.
 
Originally posted by: Howard
Not a very smart design:
http://www.systemcooling.com/images/rev...eatsinks/TT_Sonic_Tower/Image14big.jpg

Worse than a Zalman CNPS-7000AlCu?
http://www.planetamd64.com/lofiversion/index.php/t5810.html
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Make sure u look at the benchmarks with the fan, in that case it performs just as well.

Also this is a single core benchmark, its not nearly enough to use the cooler effectively. I have tryed this on my single core and my dually against the thermaltake blue orb 2, the orb and sonic tower perform the same on the single core, but when it comes to dual core, sonic tower keeps the temps good, while the blue orb 2 continues heating, in the end the temp diff was over 10 between them.

Remember if the heat source is small the restriction will be the transition of the heat from the cpu to the heatsink, while at larger heat load u see the heatsink heat disipation capability as it will be the limiting factor. An athlon 3200+ can be cooled by a small brick of aliminium its no where near enough to test this heatsink, as its temp pretty much depend on the thermal compound effectiveness. (i ran my single core with stock heatsink and no fan quite easily)


EDIT: the design could of been better, but its made for working passivly, and keeping it like that to allow more air in between will actually help greatly when u do run it passive.
If they allowed to put a fan in the middle it would have been good.
 
Originally posted by: Howard
Not a very smart design:
http://www.systemcooling.com/images/rev...eatsinks/TT_Sonic_Tower/Image14big.jpg

Worse than a Zalman CNPS-7000AlCu?
http://www.planetamd64.com/lofiversion/index.php/t5810.html
Click to expand...
Running passive... So what? A ninja would perform similar with no fan... likely worse given the spacing of the fins. From what I've heard, with 2+ fans the Sonic Tower performs on par with the best coolers on the market.
Originally posted by: Dark Cupcake
EDIT: the design could of been better, but its made for working passivly, and keeping it like that to allow more air in between will actually help greatly when u do run it passive.
If they allowed to put a fan in the middle it would have been good.
Click to expand...
I've seen some people bend the pipes a little to allow adding a fan in the middle.
 
for myself i might get a tuniq tower although with my computer just sitting there with an opteron heatsink/fan on my 4000+ the temp is 24C thats without overclocking
 
Originally posted by: Dark Cupcake
Originally posted by: Howard
Not a very smart design:
http://www.systemcooling.com/images/rev...eatsinks/TT_Sonic_Tower/Image14big.jpg

Worse than a Zalman CNPS-7000AlCu?
http://www.planetamd64.com/lofiversion/index.php/t5810.html
Click to expand...

Make sure u look at the benchmarks with the fan, in that case it performs just as well.
Click to expand...
It ties at load, and performs worse by 1 degree when idling. Within the margin of error, I suppose, but surely I don't think it performs noticeably better.
Also this is a single core benchmark, its not nearly enough to use the cooler effectively.
Click to expand...
So you mean you need the IHS removed for the Sonic Tower to work effectively?

Sorry, I don't buy your argument that all heatsinks work the same at low load.
 
Originally posted by: Howard
Originally posted by: Dark Cupcake
Originally posted by: Howard
Not a very smart design:
http://www.systemcooling.com/images/rev...eatsinks/TT_Sonic_Tower/Image14big.jpg

Worse than a Zalman CNPS-7000AlCu?
http://www.planetamd64.com/lofiversion/index.php/t5810.html
Click to expand...

Make sure u look at the benchmarks with the fan, in that case it performs just as well.
Click to expand...
It ties at load, and performs worse by 1 degree when idling. Within the margin of error, I suppose, but surely I don't think it performs noticeably better.
Also this is a single core benchmark, its not nearly enough to use the cooler effectively.
Click to expand...
So you mean you need the IHS removed for the Sonic Tower to work effectively?

Sorry, I don't buy your argument that all heatsinks work the same at low load.
Click to expand...

Single core ie: amd 3200+, not refering to the IHS in any way.

At low heat outputs whats limiting the temp is the thermal interface between the cpu and heatsink, remember no heatsink will cause the temp to be equal to ambient even when it disipates more heat than gains, why do u think that is? Also this is the same reson u get better temps with the IHS removed, u get better thermal interface.

So at low heat output ie amd single core cpus which dont produce nearly enough heat, the heatsink will perform same as any other for that exact reason. And i have tested this by comparing it with a blue orb 2. I put the blue orb on the 3200+ amd, checked max temp then i replaced it with the sonic tower. And the performance of the heatsinks was the same.

When i did the testing on my 3800+ amd X2 overclocked to 2.6ghz (back then 😛) the sonic tower had much better results, like i said before roughly 10+ degree diff at full load between it and the blue orb 2.

The thing is the heatsinks have the same temp transfer capability from the cpu, they both have coper bases. So if u count this similar then if the heatsinks can disipate the heat that they gain their temps should be equal. Now when u apply more heat, whats gonna happen is some heatsinks will still be able to disipate this heat without buildup (this is where heatpipes are actually usefull cause they transfer energy quickly) and some will start heating up cause there is more heat then they can disipate, they will heat up to a point where the heat they recieve is equal to the heat they disipate.
So based on this to really test how effective the heatsink is, is to get to this point where u see that happening, cause bellow that there is not much point.
 
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