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Thermalright IFX-14 - The Giant Of Cooling
Source: Tom's Hardware US – Keywords: cpu, cooler, charts, 2008
Syndication:
Thermalright IFX-14 - The Giant Of Cooling
For an air cooler, the cooling performance of Thermalright's IFX-14 is very good. The cooler is sold without a fan, so we decided to test it using the Scythe SY1225SL12M (120x25 mm, 1200 RPM, 116.4 m³/h, 24 db(A), $10). This would also be the recommended fan for the IFX-14.
Thermalright IFX14
The placement of the fan has only marginal impact on cooling performance; we were only able to measure a 1-2°C temperature difference. The optimal position for the fan seems to be at the centre of the cooler. Mounting equipment for two fans is included as well.
HR-10 Back-Board
Underside
At the slowest fan speed, the processor temperature was 71°C - some coolers don't achieve this kind of performance even at full speed. When running at its highest setting, the IFX-14 cools the CPU to a very impressive 62°C.
Regardless of whether the cooler is running at its lowest speed of 800 RPM or full blast at 1200 RPM, it is virtually silent thanks to the Scythe fan. You could even use it as a passive cooler with slower CPUs, although we would still recommend active cooling.
Mounting components
Another special feature of this cooler is its second small passive heatsink, which conducts heat away from the bottom of the motherboard, and is mounted underneath the CPU socket. During testing, we were able to confirm that this second heatsink gets noticeably warm, indicating that heat is indeed being drawn away from the CPU.
Retail box
We do have to criticize the installation procedure, though. The motherboard has to be removed from the case, and mounting the cooler in the motherboard proves difficult, as the heatsink does not slide into place anywhere, and the screws can only be fastened with the motherboard lying on a flat surface. Installing the IFX-14 inside a tower would be extremely complicated. Its large size (4.5 x 12.5 x 14.5 cm in length, width and height) may also contribute to making the installation a little more difficult.
Finally, the good performance also comes at a handsome price. The cooler costs around $65, with the Scythe fan adding another $10 on top of that. Nonetheless, this product is well worth this price, thanks to its very good performance.
| Technical Data | ||
|---|---|---|
| CPU | 100% load | idle |
| Temperature 12V | 62.5°C | 35°C |
| Temperature 5V | 71.5°C | 36°C |
| Noise | 38.8 dB(A) | 37.7 dB(A) |
| Fan Speed | 1200 RPM | 800 RPM |
| Weight | 866 grams | |
| Intel Socket | 775 | |
| AMD Socket | AM2 | AM2+ |
Installation
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Noctua clearly state orientation of their coolers and that is ass about.
Every other review I have read rates the NH-U12F much more highly... always near best in class
If my Artic silver 5 + Scythe Katana 2 cooler(for only a massive price of 25 USD! I can keep my outdated Pentium D under 100 degrees fahrenheit,infact around HALF of these tests,even under water cooling? Wow,according to this,I should actually worry about getting a quad core because of the heat.And no,I don't have any fans in my case,it's open,only fans are from my GPU,CPU,and my PSU.
No extra 4 250mm performance fans.And an X38? That's just unbelievable.
A good article, i especially like the tests for installation and sound, as those are what i would look into most when purchasing a cooler, and unlike CPUs, there are usually no charts to go along with.
They have it on the top side of the sink flowing in a downward direction!!!
it goes against basic laws of physics and logic.
but when installed in a normal ATX case, would be detrimental to the coolers performance. Especially coolers designed similar to the Noctua and Scythe Ninja plus.
I can't be certain about others but Arctic Cooling's Freezer 7 Pro is supposed to be installed like this(one would assume others of similar design would be the same)
http://bigrockies.com/media/cooler.jpg
As these have published manufacturer recomended installations why would you reverse it.
I recently read a review of the latest Noctua cooler at Legitreviews
where Noctua actually contacted them on this very issue... as a result they retested and found some improvement in cooling.
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/741/1/
... must be stupid ...! The fan is istalled at wrong side of the cooler ...
Nothing's wrong or stupid with that setup--two fans are used in a push-pull arrangement--the bottom fan is blowing into the cooler, the top fan is pulling air away from the cooler to exhaust it from the cooler.
As said the Noctua is setup with the fan on top blowing down, which is the only config that Noctua dont support.
The Thermalright has the fan in the middle blowing up so it looks like there is no real consistancy in the test methods... but I would like to hear from the testers in case they found some reason to use each particular setup.