Thermaltake "Volcano 7" HSF Review

Author : Joseph Leone Date : 23rd November 2001

3DVelocity would like to thank Thermaltake Technology Company, Ltd., Taiwan, for their help and courtesy in providing this cooler for review. Special thanks to Kenny Lin for his valuable assistance.

Introduction :

Thermaltake Technology sent us their newest and slickest CPU cooler. We'll be reviewing it's good and bad points, as well as testing it's performance with our exclusive test equipment. Under this new program, all the HSF units we obtain, however we obtain them, will be tested using our "test bench". If you'd like to see more about the test unit itself, and the reasoning behind our decision to embark on this course, you can read the entire article here. The bottom line is to obtain results that can be compared across the whole spectrum of available HSF units.

The Specs :

SPECIFICATION
P/N	A1124
Fan Dimension	80x80x25 mm
Rated Voltage	12VDC
Started Voltage	7VDC
Rated Current	0.18AMP ~ 0.45AMP
Power Input	2.16W ~ 5.4W
FAN Speed Control Setting:
2900 rpm at 25°C~
5000 rpm at 35°C
Max. Air Flow	46 CFM at 2900rpm
	53 CFM at 5000rpm
Noise	27 dB at 2900 rpm
	39 dB at 5000 rpm
Bearing Type	Two Ball Bearing
Life Time	50,000 hours
Connector	3 PIN

 

DIMENSIONS

 

 

What you get :

Here's what you see when the delivery man finally shows up with your cooler. Let's face it...who actually goes to a store anymore. The first thing I noticed was the slick, stylized grille sporting the Thermaltake logo. There is no mistaking who makes these little beauties.

 

 

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First Impression:

Inside the box, the unit is packed with a small emblem. I guess the point is to announce to the world that Thermaltake has the honor of residing inside your computer. The box had no shipping protection whatsoever, so it would be a good practice to carefully inspect for hidden damage upon delivery.

 

 

Construction:

As you can see below, this unit is constucted of aluminum with a copper slug to contact the CPU die. Thermaltake includes a thermal interface material, which is really only good for one application. We prefer to clean the TIM off and use Artic Silver or one of the other high performance thermal transfer compounds. While the use of aluminum and copper seems to offer a compromise between weight and performance, this is still a very heavy unit. It weighs 520 grams, which is nearly double the AMD recommended maximum of 300 grams. As these units keep getting heavier and heavier, the makers should start thinking about alternate mounting methods. On the plus side, the blue anodizing is attractive and the copper slug has a very flat surface.

 

 

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Mounting:

This is the business end of a pretty generic clip system. It mounts and dismounts with average effort, and there's a small slot in the larger end of the clip that will accept a narrow screwdriver. With care, one can mount and dismount the unit without too much danger of a slipup that would damage the motherboard. The lower picture shows the Volcano mounted on our dummy socket. If we're going to break a tab off, it's not going to be on my motherboard.

 

 

 

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The fan is the heart of Thermaltake's flagship cooler, though. It's an 80 x 80 x 25 mm variable speed manufactured for Thermaltake. The temperature sensor is hanging out the side of the fan housing, and modulates the speed from 2900 to 5000 RPM. It does this by increasing the voltage as the temperature of the sensor increases. At temperatures of 25C and below, the fan runs at 7VDC. As temperatures increase, the voltage (and RPM) rise to 12VDC at 35C. I'll have more on this later. While we're on the electricals, it should be noted that the fan comes equipped with a 3 pin to 4 pin adapter cable and has a separate RPM monitoring line. This allows the fan to be powered directly from the main power supply, while still retaining the monitoring capability.

 

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Results and Opinions:

We're still compiling data for our test results chart, but as you can see below, the Volcano 7 scored right in the middle of the range with average performance. The unit is well constructed, has an attractive appearance (for you guys with the clear cases), and is relatively quiet, even with the sensor shorted out to high speed, which we did for our testing. On the down side, however, is the weight of this cooler hanging from two little tabs on the CPU socket. Performance is adequate, but not spectacular. This is a long overdue feature, but I have some concerns about it's application here.What I'd really like to see is the fan speed sensor buried inside the copper slug. I don't quite see the point of increasing fan speed in response to constantly increasing case temperature. Circulating warmer and warmer air faster and faster won't really cool any better. Monitoring the temperature of the die, from deep inside the heatsink (as AMD recommends!) would really create a true "speed on demand" feature. I hope that Thermaltake continues to develop the variable speed feature, as it has great potential. Their literature indicates availablity of the fan only, and perhaps we'll try some as case fans. I'll give the Volcano 7 a rating of "7" on the purely subjective 3DVelocity scale.

 

Note: All the units are tested the same way. 1500 grams of water at 80C are circulated through our testing apparatus, with the time and temperature drop monitored. We take the 10 minute period with the greatest temperature drop, and simply calculate the calories per hour and BTU per hour of heat transfer.

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