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Thermoengine History
In the past couple of months, there has been a controversy regarding the Thermoengine and it's construction. Seemingly a few months back, there have been a barrage of reviews on the Thermoengine "I" as I like to call it. The original had a hollow core, brought into the open by such sites as HardOCP calling it the "heat pipe" and it had a lot of people talking. Since then, Thermosonic has quietly modified the design of the Thermoengine but this time with a solid core instead of a hollow core. This generated some rumors and some anger directed towards Thermosonic because they seemingly fooled the public by selling them different Thermoengines than the ones that were reviewed. As a note, according to some performance tests by the HardOCP, the solid core Thermoengines did not perform up to par with the older, hollow core Thermoengines. The HSF we have today in the labs is the hollow core Thermoengine.
If you would like more information on the supposed heat pipe in the Thermoengine and see pictures of one cut straight down the middle, check this out for more info
Installation
Let's start with the clips. The Thermoengine has a moderately easy installation process of any heatsink I've used and it's virtually dummy proof. It's very easy to put on and take off (with a flat-head screwdriver). Putting on the heatsink isn't a problem at all but I've found that it is EXTREMELY difficult to take off with your hands and you need to resort to a flat head to remove it easily and properly. The heatsink is rated for both Intel and AMD processors and they work extremely well for both. Taking off and putting on the Thermoengine isn't tedious at all and really is no hassle. The slot in the clip for the flat head is also a really good touch to make it even easier to take off with a flat head.
Benchmarks And Performance
The performance of the Thermoengine in my experience is largely dependent on the type of fan that is mounted on it. Although the heatsink alone does a good job of cooling, it is nothing exceptional and noteworthy. A few months ago, the Thermoengine would have dominated the market because it's performance is on par with the old king Alpha Novatech but today, with the outrageous Copper Coolers and new dynamic cooling solutions, it's just not up there anymore. It's safe to say that as long as you're not using the stock fan on the Thermoengine, you should see better-than-average results in your overclocking and computing experience. Today, we will examine the Thermoengine with both the stock fan and the new Global Win 7k RPM fan.
Testing will be done a Asus CUSL2 with a Thermister in the CPU socket under the processor for accurate measurements running a Pentium III 800e at 1GHz at 1.85v. The room temperature was at 75 degrees and the ambient temperature in the case at idle was 85 degrees. The heatsink will be run and temperatures measured under idle and load while the ambient temperature of the case will be continuously measured.
Benchmark System And Notes
- Intel Pentium III 800e
- Asus CUSL2
- 256MB PC133 SDRAM
- Standard TIM used, standard fan and upgraded fan used
- Alphs PEP66 used as comparison
Testing Notes
1) Idle - Let computer boot up, wait an hour without doing anything (go to Wendy's), come back and check temp.
2) Load - Run Prime95 and/or Sandra CPU Burn-In Wizard for an hour (go to Wendy's) and check temperature
3) Ambient - Room temperature
3) Motherboard monitor used to measure temperature in Celsius (sorry, I hate it too)
Thermoengine (stock) - Idle 40C
Thermoengine (7K) - Idle 38C
Thermoengine (stock) - Load 54C
Thermoengine (7K) - Load 50C)
Alpha PEP66 - Idle 39C
Alpha PEP66 - Load 52C
The Thermoengine in its base configuration is comparable to the Alpha PEP66, this was a big surprise to me as I thought it would have needed the benefit of more cooling to compete with the big boys. I guess design won out in that aspect. But as you could see, the bigger fan helped a lot in cooling down the massive heatsink, an admirable 4 degrees in load and 2 degrees in idle. Very impressive numbers for a newcomer to the heatsink market. The only disadvantage in using the big fan is the noise. At 7,000 RPM, the Global Win fan is a real headache inducer. It was effectively louder than all my other fans combined. If you could withstand using such a loud fan or have a voltage regulator, by all means go for the big fan.
>> Pros & Cons/Conclusion
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