SUMMARY: We recently reviewed the new Dominator HSF here at TweakTown, but it seems that it already has a younger brother; namely the OCZ Dominator2 HSF. It too is made of aluminum and boasts a huge fan mounted on top. Come join Darthtanion as he takes a look at its performance and make a final decision as to whether or not its possible to have an aluminum sink in a copper world.
Testing for this sink followed my normal guidelines so that I can have results that are fairly compared to other heatsinks without bias. Ambient temperature during testing was 21-22C, voltage was set to 1.80 volts and the test system consisted of:
Temperatures were taken at stock speed, again at 1100MHz, and a final time at 1333MHz. This will give us an idea as to the effectiveness of the sink during both normal, moderate and aggressive clock speeds. The 1333MHz speed testing is a new one that I have incorporated, but with the 1GHz processors and above going to much higher levels, it seemed necessary to see what coolers would be effective when these processors are pushed to these higher limits.
Testing itself included measuring the temperature at idle, after a Quake III Deathmatch battle, and again after a continuous looping of MadOnion’s 3dMark2001 Demo. These are the same testing criteria that I have been using in the past, so am maintaining some consistency for the sake of comparison.
OK… Here we go for round two of the aluminum heatsink in a copper world. The original Dominator fared quite well against the competition. Now the main question remaining is whether or not the second generation can do equally as well. So let’s see…
- 1000MHz (57.4 Watts)
We’re seeing scores here that either match or beat out the original Dominator. And considering that the heatsink is aluminum, it has taken the lead for ANY aluminum sink tested to date. But can it continue with this pace? Let’s fins out shall we?
- 1100MHz (62.2 Watts)
Hmmm…
So we go out and buy a copper heatsink because it cools so much better, right? I’m seeing a trend here with the Dominator series of cooler. The new guy slipped just a tad on the Demo run, but the other scores still managed to tie the original.
I’ll cover the benefits of this model a bit later, but for now lets check out how it fares at a higher speed.
- 1333MHz (73.6 Watts)
Very nice indeed! It managed to beat out even the mighty Gladiator at idle, and then snuggled in to a very solid second place for the other tests. If cooling is the reason that we spend all that money on copper sinks, then it may be time to take a serious look at our buying habits.
So now that we can see what this beast can do, lets wrap it up…
