Acoustic Samples: Listen to this Heatsink!

The Tocools Novasonic clocks in at just over 50 dB so it can be considered a little on the noisy side, but this will depend largely on the other components in your case. A loud power supply, or Geforce4 can add just about as much noise pollution to the enclosure sometimes. You can listen to this heatsink in operation for yourself by clicking on the headphones and playing 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
	verax	P14	32.1 dB	Quiet
	Verax	P11T	35.3 dB
	Coolermaster	HHC-L61	42.2 dB
	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
	Kuthtec	KTM3000	49.8 dB
	Arkua	628	50.7 dB
	Noisecontrol	Silverado	50.8 dB
	Tocools	Novasonic	52.2 dB
	NengTyi	XPC5000	52.4 dB
	Spire	5T235	52.5 dB
	Ajigo	MF014021	52.8 dB
	Thermal Integration	TI-V77L	53.0 dB
	Vantec	VA4C7040	53.4 dB
	Coolink	H1T	53.4 dB
	Ajigo	SF017011	53.6 dB
	GlacialTech	Igloo 2400	53.9 dB
	Tocools	Crown	54.5 dB
	Kuthtec	KTM2101	54.9 dB
	Cybercooler	P5750	55.4 dB
	Kuthtec	KTM2001	55.5 dB
	Sibak	AT01515B	55.8 dB
	Sibak	AE01625B	58.2 dB
	AVC	Tundra 2	58.4 dB
	Sibak	AC02625B	59.7 dB
	Coolermaster	HHC-001	59.9 dB
	Sibak	AC06725TH	62.4 dB
	Dynatron	DY1206BH-625	63.3 dB
	Dynatron	DC1206BMP	65.1 dB	louder
	Thermalright	AX-7	66.4 dB

There are a lot of heatsinks in the 52-53 dB range, and that is something that will eventually have to change. Heatsinks over 55 dB can be really annoying, but for the most part coolers near that 50 dB mark are common, and just fine in most cases.