The Igloo 5760 PWM heatsink uses a familiar top-down approach, but departs from traditional designs in its use of three 8mm diameter heatpipes to conduct heat from the CPU to a high density array of thin aluminum fins. Most other heatsinks of similar size constraints rely upon four or five 6mm diameter heatpipes to get the job done. For such a small fin area (92x92mm), an abundance of heatpipes intersecting the fins impacts the ease of airflow.

Glacialtech's Igloo 760 PWM heatsink weighs a feathery 350 grams and comes with a single 92mm PWM fan that rotates at between 1100-2000RPM. Glacialtech ship the Igloo 5760 PWM with a pre-applied patch of thermal interface material so installation is a snap. It retails for about $28 USD.

Glacialtech Igloo 5760 PWM Heatsink

heatsink specsheet manufacturer: glacialtech model no.: igloo 5760 pwm materials: aluminum fins, nickel plated copper heatpipes and copper base fan mfg: coolingstar jt9225m12s002a fan spec: 1100-2000rpm, 12v, 0.26a fan dim: 25x92x92mm heatsink & fan dim: 88x96x127mm weight: 350 grams includes: multi-socket mounting hardware, instructions Compatible with Sockets: AMD: 754/939/AM2/AM3 Intel: LGA775/1156/1366 Est. Pricing: $28USD ($28CDN) Where To Buy?

Where Glacialtech do take a bit of short cut is with the base plate for the Igloo 5760 PWM heatsink. Measuring just 1mm thick, the copper plate (which is soldered to the flattened heatpipes and extruded aluminum stiffening base heatsink) seems a little thin for the job. Typically copper base plates are minimum 3mm thick, on average 6mm. Provided the solder joint between the 1mm plate and three heatpipes is good, it's likely the base plate will fulfill more of a heat conduction rather than heat spreading roll.

The three 8mm diameter flattened heatpipes together make up a 30mm swath, fully covering Intel integrated heatspreaders for Core 2 Duo and Core i5 processors, and mostly covering the AMD processor heat spreader. In the grand scheme of things I think the little extruded aluminum heatsink will add a little to the overall cooling capacity of the heatsink. Greater cooling efficiency will be had by conducting the majority of heat to the larger surface area of the aluminum fin array.

Base Finish and Flatness

Flipping a heatsink over to inspect the business end is often a simple indicator of overall cooler quality. More practically speaking, a heatsink is in many ways only as effective as the contact it makes with the processor - the flatter and smoother the better. Base finish is one of the criteria that Frostytech measure in the course of evaluating heatsinks, and it involves two distinct aspects. Surface Finish is the first; this is calculated with the aid of Surface Roughness Comparator that has a cross section of common machine surface finishes and their numerical surface roughness equivalents in microinches. The second is Surface Flatness. This is tested with an engineers straight edge or proven flat surface, in two axis.