- Nov 20, 2012
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I hope this is in the right place. It's a bit of a rant.
I've been a reader of Tom's Hardware for over a decade now, and ever since the introduction of acoustic efficiency, I've noticed a very disturbing trend. The metric consistently misrepresents certain coolers, and some of the recommendations that are based on it lead to comparatively poor buys.
For example, if you look at the Gammaxx 400 review, the Gammaxx 400 achieves a delta-T of 58C and produces 20.7 dBA doing so.
The text says that it trades blows with Shadow Rock slim. However, the Shadow Rock achieves a delta T of 57C, comparable to the Gammaxx 400, but produces 27.3 dBA doing so. 27.3 dBA is noticeably louder than 20.7 dBA.
Why does the text say that a cooler achieving the same temperature delta at a dramatically lower noise level is "trading blows with" the louder cooler?
This is one of many examples I could cite. Other recent ones include:
It seems like this metric consistently and heavily penalizes coolers that have extra headroom in terms of fan speed, even if that cooler can achieve the same or better temperatures at a lower noise level than it's competitors.
Why do they disregard noise level at equal thermal performance when dealing with acoustic efficiency? Wouldn't that be a much better metric to use, considering most coolers these days can be run at as little as 30% of their max speed?
I've been a reader of Tom's Hardware for over a decade now, and ever since the introduction of acoustic efficiency, I've noticed a very disturbing trend. The metric consistently misrepresents certain coolers, and some of the recommendations that are based on it lead to comparatively poor buys.
For example, if you look at the Gammaxx 400 review, the Gammaxx 400 achieves a delta-T of 58C and produces 20.7 dBA doing so.
The text says that it trades blows with Shadow Rock slim. However, the Shadow Rock achieves a delta T of 57C, comparable to the Gammaxx 400, but produces 27.3 dBA doing so. 27.3 dBA is noticeably louder than 20.7 dBA.
Why does the text say that a cooler achieving the same temperature delta at a dramatically lower noise level is "trading blows with" the louder cooler?
This is one of many examples I could cite. Other recent ones include:
- the x61 vs H240 x2,
- the Gammaxx 400 vs True Spirit 140,
- the Gamer Storm Assassin II vs NH-D15, etc.
It seems like this metric consistently and heavily penalizes coolers that have extra headroom in terms of fan speed, even if that cooler can achieve the same or better temperatures at a lower noise level than it's competitors.
Why do they disregard noise level at equal thermal performance when dealing with acoustic efficiency? Wouldn't that be a much better metric to use, considering most coolers these days can be run at as little as 30% of their max speed?
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