Date: January 16th, 2005
Article by: Nathan Glentworth (Owner, Head Editor & Hardware Reviewer)
Product Submitted by: SCYTHE USA <--Shop for a Freezer 7 from Scythe Here
<--SHOP FOR AN ARCTIC COOLING FREEZER 7 LGA775 P4 COOLER HERE

SCYTHE USA ONLINE RETAILER PROFILE

Scythe's mission is to help our customers sensibly build or customize their 'dream' computing environment, which can only be achieved through Do It Yourself (DIY) or "white-box" assembly with each component of your choice. Scythe offers original products with high performance, innovative concept, and heavy-user oriented design.

We offer our valuable customers products that satisfy or weapons to compete against competitors in highly competitive "gaming", "over-clocking", "low-noise" arenas. Try SCKM-1000, or "Kamakaze", our flagship cooling solution, NCU-2000 for ZERO-NOISE cooling solution with unique "Heatlane®" technology, or ErgoDiver keyboard for FPS/MMORPG titles. Most importantly, there is a lot more that is on the way!

At Scythe, we believe that the best product ideas come simply from knowing customers and their experiences. Born right in the middle of Akihabara Electric Town in metropolitan Tokyo, the PC enthusiasts working at Scythe know what to develop because that is exactly what we want for ourselves.

We offer products with 100% quality assurance and total pride, and if the product has the Scythe name on it, you can rest assured that its quality will be up to the 'zero tolerance' standards that we Japanese demand.

PRODUCT INTRODUCTION

While residing in Canada, I have an intimate knowledge of everything from cool to down right crazy cold. As I was taking my dog sled to the local Tweaknews office testlab igloo to write another review, I pondered (while fighting off polar bears) what is really necessary to cool the new LGA775 processor.

From my personal experience, the copper core equipped stock Intel cooling solution which is bundled with the new retail processor package does do a very good job right out of the box. But one of the drawbacks is that it is a little on the noisy side. But with the thermal controlled CPU fan hub, noise is usually minimal seeing the fan will only spin up to full speed when temperatures are in the upper threshold. But to some, even at lower speeds the stock solution may be a little louder than what they really need.

Today I will be reviewing a rather unique cooling solution that boasts a quieter fan and from what the manufacturer is claiming, is a better and more efficient cooling solution for your new LGA775 processor. With a rather interesting fan and enough surface area to cool a toaster oven, let's see how this heatpipe based cooler performs while being attached to the Tweaknews testbed equipped with one of the hottest running processors on the the market, the Intel 3.46Ghz Extreme Edition.

(Disclaimer: No sleddogs were harmed in this review. The polar bear on the other hand, he had it comin........)

SMALL HEATPIPE TECHNOLOGY TUTORIAL

I am going to keep this as simple as possible to get the basic premise across to all of the Tweaknews readers. Please don't be insulted if this is too simple for your education level. I have to cater my writing to the least technical reader looking for information.

The basic idea behind heatpipe technology if really simple.

1.) With a tube containing a compressed fluid/gas, the fluid comes in contact with the heat source (aka cpu core) which heats up the volatile fluid and turn it to a gas. The energy is absorbed in the gas production process and is ready for transportation.

2.) The heated gas now travels along the inner portion of the tube where it comes to the cooling portion of the heatsink in this case example.

3.) The radiator, with or without a fan, will cool the liquid and transfer the energy (AKA heat) to the radiator to be dispersed to the surrounding air. With the heat removed, the vapor quickly condenses back to a fluid and runs along the inside surface of the pipe back down to the bottom where the process can be started all over again.

For another example, you can consider a boiling pot of water with a glass lid as a very very basic heatpipe. When the water boils, the water vapor comes in contact with the cooler glass pot lid which forces the vapor to condense back to water where is dribbles back down the inside of the lid back into the pot.

It's basic, but it gets the point across.