For its' size the Skive heatsink is moderately noisy. It is no where near as loud as the Delta's are but it isn't as quite as it first appears either. Sitting just about middle of the road in terms of noise, the Skive will be quite enough to satisfy most users. The waveform image gives a fairly good impression of what level of noise is produced by the heatsink, but to really hear for yourself, click on the head phones and listen to this heatsink.

Synthetic Temperature Test Results:

While the technique behind its construction is quite impressive, the performance is lower than what we originally expected to see. In fact, much of the reason behind the Skive settling into the comfortable range of the OEM heatsink may have to do with its aluminum construction. Nowadays, the use of all-aluminum heatsinks seems to be fading. To have an all-aluminum heatsink and a 10mm tall fan leaves the Skive a bit under powered.

Still the 60 degree temperature mark is not completely terrible, and this heatsink would probably do quite well on a moderately powered Duron.

There is no change in the order of our reference coolers for the Skive. The small fan simply doesn't have the RPM or CFM rating to move the Skive any higher up the ladder. For its weight it is a very good performer however. If AVC were to come out with a full copper version of the Skive it could potentially be quite the force to be reckoned with. However, we cannot look towards the what-if's in this case and will have to level the Skive in the OEM range of aluminum heatsinks.

The base finish is average, the fan is a bit under-powered when compared to the rest of the heatsink market, and dreams performance cooling are just not realistic. The design of the heatsink is quite impressive, and the light-weight is something quite rare these days. To drop on a 6800 RPM fan will net about a 2-4 degree drop in the overall temperature in most cases, which would put the Skive on more favorable ground. But as OEM heatsinks go, it is not that bad of a choice at all.