Acoustic Samples: Listen to this Heatsink!

The fan is just 15mm thick and features nine blades so it is not incredibly noisy to use. The Power Logic fan rotates at about 4500RPM and works well enough with the heatsink. To listen to this heatsink for yourself, simply click on the little pair of headphones and download 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
	Coolermaster	HHC-L61	42.2 dB	quiet
	Coolermaster	HSC-V62	43.7 dB
	Spire	5F263	44.5 dB
	JMC Prducts	400023	46.6 dB
	Zalman	All Flower HSF	47.4/28.9 dB
	Taisol	CGK760092	48.4 dB
	GlacialTech	Igloo 2310	49.4 dB
	Cho-Liang	CB0307U-17	49.5 dB
	Arkua	628	50.7 dB
	Noisecontrol	Silverado	50.8 dB
	NengTyi	XPC5000	52.4 dB
	Spire	5T235	52.5 dB
	Thermal Integration	TI-V77L	53.0 dB
	Tocools	Crown	54.5 dB
	Cybercooler	P5750	55.4 dB
	Sibak	AT01515B	55.8 dB
	Sibak	AE01625B	58.2 dB
	Sibak	AC02625B	59.7 dB
	Coolermaster	HHC-001	59.9 dB
	Dynatron	DY1206BH-625	63.3 dB
	Dynatron	DC1206BMP	65.1 dB	louder

Below 55 dB is usually pretty good, and Cho Liang manages to come in at 49.5 dB which is really great to see. There are way too many heatsinks on the market today which are just too noisy for most of our needs. It can also be a good idea to buy a heatsink with a smaller, lower noise fan and then switch that out with one that has higher RPM's, and makes more noise as needed.