Hardware Analysis - Arctic Cooling Freezer 64

Re: Arctic Cooling Freezer 64

Gerritt — 2008-04-20T02:04:08-05:00

John,
DANG.
Someday we are going to have to sit down over a beer, single malt scotch or mineral water (I'll buy)!

Gerritt

Re: Arctic Cooling Freezer 64

john albrich — 2008-04-20T01:50:00-05:00

Gerritt said:

John,
Agreed, to a point....

Such things are always "to a point", aren't they?

One of the reviews said the base looked like someone had dragged it over 60-grit sandpaper. I think even AS5 would be challenged at completely filling-in all the imperfections in a base covered with those farmland-like furrows. The normal 'short grain of rice' application volume amount might not adequately "fill" an entire surface covered in them.

Other factors of course also apply: temperature differential, temp of the cooling fluid as it enters the exchange unit, contamination on the heat exchanger fins, heat capacity of the cooling fluid, and so on. Basically anything that substantially affects the rate of heat dissipation could mask differences attributable to the heat paste used and could lead to the a wide variety conclusions based on the same data. (kinda like global warming data)

Re: Arctic Cooling Freezer 64

Gerritt — 2008-04-20T01:20:58-05:00

John,
Agreed, to a point.
One of the plusses to AS-5 and other like high-end thermal paste is not only the higher thermal transference of the media itself, but a smaller granulization, thus allowing a better flow of the paste into very large imperfections.
It is in the case of a badly honed base overall (and this could include the IHS) the imperfections over a large area are small enough as to decrease the efficiency, but in themselves be too small for the paste to penetrate.

While I've always lapped my processor HS and the IHS (thus removing the branding) or have even gone further on a couple of occasions and removed the IHS, I've never done so to MB mounted components. Right now my CPU (rated at 2.2GHz) is running at 2.6GHz stable, with a minimal load (of 69 processes) at 35C, and at maximum load of both cores running 100% at 48-50C, my FSB controller runs at a constant 44-50C even though both are liquid cooled. I'm wondering if I need to lap the FSB Controller.

Gerritt

Re: Arctic Cooling Freezer 64

john albrich — 2008-04-19T21:04:27-05:00

Gerritt said:

...Small imperfections, or microscopically huge imperfections in the surface can cause differences of up to 10-15% on the efficiency of the HSF, or can cause hot-spots on the IHS that could lead to overall higher tempuratures in the cores....

I think imperfections could also explain why average and superior HS pastes wouldn't show much difference in performance (see my earlier post on test results). If the thermal coupling is substantially degraded due to imperfections, then any differences caused by the paste used could be overwhelmed by the larger impact of the imperfections.

Re: Arctic Cooling Freezer 64

Gerritt — 2008-04-19T01:45:07-05:00

I find that even the name is mis-leading. I'd expect something called a Freezer to have peltiers or other CHILLING components, but this is just a branded heat-pipe HSF.

I do seem to recall that there is a "cure" time associated with AS5 in order to get the best thermal transfer, this being around 20-40 hours of usage, in order to get the greatest effect from it.

Also, I always "lap" or hone all of my HSFs, no matter who makes it, from the stock AMD HSF for the x2/4400+(which is, BTW, actually a very good one), to my Danger Den Water Blocks, including my TDX Silver. Small imperfections, or microscopically huge imperfections in the surface can cause differences of up to 10-15% on the efficiency of the HSF, or can cause hot-spots on the IHS that could lead to overall higher tempuratures in the cores.
With a stock HSF on my Toledo Core AMD x2 4400+ I was seeing rest/load temps of 41/55, while with a liquid cooled replacement I'm seeing 33/45 while running two instances of Seti@home 24/7. Even under moderate OCing, 2.2GHz - 2.8GHz, I am totally stable under %100 load on both cores, and the load temp has yet to exceed 50 degrees C.

Gerritt

Re: Arctic Cooling Freezer 64

john albrich — 2008-04-18T22:38:39-05:00

Anyone know what the bearings are? Couldn't find the spec for the bearings anywhere.

It was interesting that the default HS paste seems to provide excellent performance, superior to quite a few others. AS5 wasn't in the test.

Kind of worried about the "gouges" in the heat-sink base one review reported. Comparable to being "dragged across 60-grit sandpaper" is not good.

Re: Arctic Cooling Freezer 64

_MD_ — 2008-04-18T20:12:14-05:00

McFly said:

You tell us ... you're the one that bought it.

haha... that's right... ))))

but seriously, if you haven't noticed a change in temps yet, something is wrong... maybe you applied too much paste or the cooler is not seated properly... many reasons...
oh, by the way, are you overclocking????

Re: Arctic Cooling Freezer 64

McFly — 2008-04-18T05:17:33-05:00

You tell us ... you're the one that bought it.

Arctic Cooling Freezer 64

Matt Iskov — 2008-04-18T04:58:23-05:00

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185125

Bought this recently.
Change from stock cooling to this.
Applied new AS5.

When will I notice a difference in temperatures?