XP-90 vs. SI-97

[touchmyichi]

Both of these have been getting similar reviews.... Does anyone have an opinion as to which one is the better heatsink?

 

[AristoV300]

I am very pleased with my XP-90. Great design, light, and clips on to the stock retention brackets. Keeps my 3.2 Prescott at 38 idle, and 47 full load @ 3.9.

 

[Tiamat]

XP-90 if you have an A64

SI-97 if you have an AXP

 

[touchmyichi]

oh yeah , sorry about that I didn't see that it was just for A64/p4... Sorry for my noob post. I'm trying to decide on one of these for a friend. We were also looking at the slk 700 since I kind of wanted to save him some bucks and I don't think he's going to be too hardcore into OC'ing, we might just go with that.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I'm not familiar with the length or the breadth of the AMD line, but this seems to address a lot more than just the P4 socket 478 and one socket design for the AMD line. In fact, I thought that the XP series was also LGA775 compatible -- correct me if I'm wrong -- but it won't be the first time a reseller like Silicon-Valley Compu-Cycle omitted update information on their product-offering descriptions:

The little brother of the XP-120, the XP-90 from Thermalright is designed and optimized for 90/92mm fans. 4 aluminum heatpipes bring the heat straight from the base of the heatsink to the large aluminum fins. The heatpipes are soldered onto the base for maximum heat transfer. Compatible with Sockets: 478, 754, 939, 940. No fan included.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

According to SVC, the SI-97 is ThermalRight's XP-series solution for AMD processors. But again, someone else would have to explain why, if the XP90 were compatible with AMD sockets, they would design this third model whose performance must be equivalent to the XP120 and '90.

Further -- I was right -- checking ThermalRight's web-site, the XP120 is compatible with the P4LGA775 socket design. So why does not ThermalRight say the same thing for the XP90, whose cooling must be every bit as good as the XP120 with the right 92mm fan CFM throughput, because the fin-area and number of heatpipes are the same, the clips are the same, and the heatsink base is the same?

Marketing . . . . You wonder how much smoke and mirrors these companies are infusing into their efforts to provide "product differentiation", even as the items are identically priced, or similarly priced.

Maybe there IS a difference in the fin-area -- amount of sheet-metal-aluminum -- between the XP 120 and the XP 90. But I thought the reason they produced the '90 was to be "all-motherboard compatible".