Acoustic Samples: Listen to this Heatsink!

The PowerLogic fan used here is not one of the quieter ones on the market and consequently the CLCB00881 produced about 50 dB of noise in our real world test. Of course, you can actually hear what this heatsink sounds like by clicking on the headphones and listening to the MP3 recording.

FrostyTech Acoustic Sampling Chamber
Standard Waveform view of a 10 second recording. Click on the headphones to listen to an MP3 recording of this heatsink in operation.

Sound Level Measurements:

Listening to the actual noise a heatsink makes allows you to hear what pure numbers alone cannot get across. To further emphasize FrostyTech's reliance on cold hard facts when evaluating a heatsink, we also take Decibel readings with a sound level meter. These results may be higher than the manufacturer's listed specs, but then again these are real world measurements.

FrostyTech Sound Level Results
-	Manufacturer	Model	Noise Level	Scale
	Zalman	CNPS6500-AlCu	47.4/28.9 dB	quiet
	Intel	Socket 478	42.5 dB
	Cho-Liang	CL-CB00881	50.2 dB
	AVC	117140	56.1 dB	louder

Noise levels are higher than the stock Intel heatsink and will be pretty noticeable. The human hear has a hard time discerning noises where there is less than 3 dB of difference. In this case the CLCB00881 is roughly 8dB louder.

Synthetic Temperature Test Results: *Ranked according to 100W interface die test results.

FrostyTech Synthetic Temperature Test Platform Results
	Mfg.	Model	Ambient Temp.	27mm large copper block		27mm large copper block	Thermal pad	No. Fans	Fan Noise	Clip force
				50W		100W
1	AVC	117140	22.6	37.8		50.4	none	1	med	med
2	Arkua	8568	22.4	37.8		51.7	none	1	med	med
3	Zalman	CNPS6500-AlCu	23.1	40.3		57.4	none	1	low	easy
4	Vantec	GSN-7025	22.5	41.7		58.5	none	1	med	med
5	Chauh Choung	DTA-478	22.4	42.1		59.0	carbon	1	low	med
6	Intel	Socket 478	22.4	41.8		59.8	carbon	1	low	med
7	Titan	TTC-MT3AB	22.8	41.5		61.2	none	2	loud	stiff
8	Dynatron	DC1206BM-S	22.4	43.2		62.0	none	1	med	med
9	AVC	117160	22.4	42.7		62.2	white pad	1	med	med
10	Cho-Liang	CL-CB00881	23.6	41.2		65.0
11	Vantec	GSN-7015	22.4	47.5		69.0	none	1	loud	stiff
				50W		100W

Initial temperature results indicate that the Cho-Liang CLCB00881 is not about to be an improvement over the stock Intel socket 478 cooling solution. It is not really that surprising given that this heatsink is lighter than the Intel version, and would appear to have less cooling surface area too.

Rise Above Ambient Temp. (c)
	Mfg.	Model	27mm large copper block		27mm large copper block
			50W		100W
1	AVC	117140	15.2		27.8
2	Arkua	8568	15.4		29.3
3	Zalman	CNPS6500-AlCu	17.2		34.3
4	Vantec	GSN-7025	19.2		36.0
5	chauh Choung	DTA-478	19.7		36.6
6	Intel	Socket 478	19.4		37.4
7	Titan	TTC-MT3AB	18.7		38.4
8	Dynatron	DC1206BM-S	20.8		39.6
9	AVC	117160	20.3		39.8
10	Cho-Liang	CL-CB00881	18.2		41.4
11	Vantec	GSN-7105	25.1		46.6
			50W		100W

The final rise above ambient temperatures place this heatsink close to that of the AVC 117160 and Dynatron DC1206BMS heatsinks. Unfortunately the Cho-Liang offers no real improvement over the default standard heatsink ship in their retail boxes.

Knowing that there would not really be any reason to switch to this heatsink if you were already in possesion of the stock Intel socket 478 heatsink. The colour is nice, and the clipping mechanism is really user friendly, but that doesn't go far enough to making this a worthwhile "upgrade".