SUMMARY: Antec has long been a top maker of computer cases for every occassion. Recently, though, they have been expanding their product line to include many different items. So come join Mike as he takes a look at one of their newest ventures; the performance heatsink market.
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.
The smallish Antec Jet Cool has some pretty stiff competition out there, so lets see how it hangs with some high-end sinks…
- 1000MHz (57.4 Watts)
Well, so far it’s not faring too well. While it is still doing better than the older Orb units, they are going for less than twice the asking price of the Jet Cool. Let’s pump up the juice and see if its copper core helps at higher clock speeds…
- 1100MHz (62.2 Watts)
The copper core is starting to pay off a bit, but the temperatures are still getting mighty close to that 45C barrier that I always try to stay away from. While the Thunderbird processors will run fine at 50C, I have always gone for better temperatures than that. Let’s go for the gusto and boost the speed up even more…
- 1333MHz (73.6 Watts)
Not the best results here, and also getting mighty close to the 50C level of temperatures that we all try to stay away from. I’m beginning to think that maybe the copper core of this cooler should have included a bit more mass to help dissipate the heat better.
