Thermaltake's SpinQ heatsink is undeniably good looking. It's sculptural and nothing about its helical fin arrangement is unnecessarily complex. It's also happens to be based on a long standing tradition of cylindrical cooling fins with inset double-sided squirrel cage fans. Gigabyte released several variants from 2004-2006 based on this thermal architecture (see here) while Asus with its Lion Square and Thermalfly approached things from slightly different angles.

The SpinQ heatsink (model: CL-P0466) stands 152mm tall and is made from nickel plated aluminum fins soldered over six copper heatpipes. Each aluminum fin has a shape that resembles the chain sprocket on a bicycle, but each of the 54 individual fins is offset 6mm before being threaded over the copper heatpipes. This creates an eleven-sided helix that resembles a cheese grater on steroids. Nestled in the middle is an 80mm diameter, 85mm long squirrel cage fan that draws air in through both center openings and expels it out in all directions through the 20mm wide circular cooling fins. The fan spins at 1000-1600RPM and is not PWM compliant. A small variable resistor is attached that allows manual fan control if quieter operation is desired.

When operating at full speed the Thermaltake SpinQ heatsink is moderately audible, at its slowest speed it's very quiet. The Thermaltake SpinQ heatsink is compatible with Intel socket 775 and AMD socket 754/939/940/AM2+ processors, and weighs 667grams. At the time of this review, the SpinQ is not compatible with Intel socket LGA1366 Core i7 processors.

Thermaltake SpinQ Heatsink

heatsink specsheet manufacturer: thermaltake model no.: spinq (cl-p0466) materials: nickel-plated aluminum fins, copper heatpipes and base plate. fan mfg: everflow r128032su fan spec: 1000-1600rpm, 12v, 0.45a fan dim: 85x80x80mm squirrel cage heatsink & fan dim: 152x120x120mm weight: 667 grams includes: multi-socket mounting hardware, thermal compound, instructions Compatible with Sockets: 754/939/940/AM2, LGA775 Est. Pricing: $80USD ($80CDN)

The 80mm squirrel cage fan is suspended in the midst of the cylindrical cooling fins. Air is drawn in from either side of the SpinQ before the blades exhaust it outward in all directions. The translucent fan blades are illuminated with a couple blue LEDs for added visual effect.

The six copper heatpipes are soldered to a nickel plated copper base plate, though not well enough. Voids are clearly visible between the heatpipes and the copper base plate when the heatsink is held up in front of a light. Heat is still conducted along the edges of the heatpipes (think of a cylinder sitting in a V-slot), but this flaw certainly affects the efficiency of the SpinQ heatsink at moving heat energy from the CPU to the fins. The two cuts in the top aluminum cap are for the AMD clip to slide into.

Mounting Method and Hardware

The Thermaltake SpinQ heatsink is compatible with both Intel and AMD processors so two different mounting brackets are supplied. Installation is quite simple for socket 775 processors because the heatsink uses the standard Intel push-to-click retention tabs, in spite of the heatsinks' 667gram weight.

For AMD processors a simple K8 mounting clip is used which locks onto the existing heatsink retention frame.

This heatsink will be tested on FrostyTech's Intel LGA775 and K8 version of the Mk.II synthetic thermal temperature test platform, and compared against a hundred reference LGA775 and K8 heatsinks. The whole test methodology is outlined in detail here if you'd like to know what equipment is used, and the parameters under which the tests are conducted.