News Headlines
- Mon, May 21
- Borderlands 2 taking gameplay cues from Diablo 3
- Tekken Tag Tournament 2 video teases Michelle, Ogre, Angel, Kunimitsu
- Ghost Recon: Future Soldier beta hit 600K players, trailer celebrates
- Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 Collector's Edition, Limited Edition revealed
- Grim Dawn Kickstarter closes at $537,515, gets Survival mode
New Articles
Related Articles
I had the opportunity to test the AVC 112AM1 alongside a smaller Cooler Master, as well as the larger Cooler Master DP5-6I31C on both an AMD Athlon 900 and a 1.3. As I was testing some motherboards simultaneously, I checked the temperatures after running WinBench 99 version 2.0 with graphics as that seemed to work the CPU quite nicely. When I first saw the AVC I was quite pleased. This is one nice looking unit. I have to admit that this is the first copper finned cooler that I have seen and the change from the standard aluminium is great. This cooler has a clear plastic fan with a nice holographic logo in the middle (not the blue and white label pictured). Looks are secondary right? Lets find out how well it works shall we. Installation was nice and easy. The clip didnt feel too hard but it wasnt loose either so I guess it fit perfectly. This heat sink came with a thermal pad on it which most will probably remove. I did try the fan first with the pad and then with silicone compound and there was a difference with the compound being 2 degrees better than the pad. Surprised? Noise was pretty reasonable considering the larger fan that it has (compared to the small cooler that I originally had). I found it to be about the same as the small Cooler Master. There was quite a difference with the larger Cooler Master, which was very loud even though its fan was the same size and ran at the same speed. System stayed a reasonable 23°C throughout the testing and idle temp was recorded after 15 minutes of sitting with no CPU activity. As I mentioned before the high temperature was taken after running the benchmark tests. First up was the AMD 900; this CPU was used before I had the newer Cooler Master and the 1.3 so I only compared the stock Cooler Master that came with my computer when I bought it.
System idle temp; Cooler master: 40°C, AVC: 37°C I suppose the most surprising thing was that there was not much difference at idle but the difference after working the CPU was great. Initially I wanted to run right out and get one for myself. Once I got the new stuff I decided to run the tests again with the new CPU and the results were a little disappointing. System idle temp for all three coolers was about the same, between 38°C and 41°C. After benchmarks;
As you can see, the best result came not from the AVC but from the 2nd Cooler Master. Now although this Cooler Master has the same size fan as the AVC it does have a larger heat sink and that may have made all the difference. I have not been able to locate a price for the AVC but the Cooler Master DP5-6I31C is only $16 and upon checking prices on other copper finned coolers I expect that the AVC would be between $30 and $40. In conclusion there are a couple reasons for picking up this fan.. One would be to mount it in a confined case.. i.e. the guys working on the server project at the moment are considering putting these into their 2U rackmount cases. Another reason is for looks! I believe that if you have a clear-sided case this cooler would attract attention at your local LAN party. I think you could find a better solution for your cooling needs even with the XP 1900+ rating. I dont think it would be the best way to spend your money if you were serious about keeping your CPU at the coolest temperature, but for its size, the Copper Skived generally performs well. Installation: 89%
Noise: 86%
Performance: 88%
Overall Score: 88%
While this is a pretty good score the price would still have to be taken into consideration and I believe would drop the overall score by a fair bit.
|
