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THERMALTAKE VOLCANO 6Cu+ REVIEW
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SPECIFICATIONS
- Fan Dimensions : 60x80x25
- Rated Voltage : 12VDC
- Current : 0.37AMP
- Power input: 4.44W
- Fan speed 7000rpm + - 10%
- Airflow : 38CFM
- Noise : 39 dBA
Application: AMD Athlon 1.5ghz+ , Intel P3 1.13ghz & Tualatin up to 2.0ghz.
System: OCed 800cel @ 992mhz cuv4x MB , OS = win98se , tested with Quake, and 3dMark2001.
Side cover Off during test.
First impressions.
I got 2 coolers to test , the Thermaltake Volcano 6Cu and 6Cu+ , unfortunately the 6Cu had a broken fan blade , so what I will do is try out the 6Cu+ with a 12cfm fan , the Ys-tech 26cfm fan , and the original 38cfm fan. This should give us some idea of how good the heat sink itself is. Before testing I used wet and dry to sand the machine marks of the copper bottom . Is it noisy you ask , oh yeah , it is , but it would also seem to be one hell of a good cooler.
On to the testing.
OK the first thing you notice is the noise , the second , is just how good this cooler is, it reduced the operating temp of my OCed celeron by 10deg Celsius. WOW. At 992mhz 1.9v my Externally ducted WBK32 ran at 33deg C under load, with the stock Volcano 6Cu+ it maxed out at 23deg C , again WOW.
Above you can see the results of the WBK32. side cover on.
Here you can see the results of the Volcano 6Cu+ , playing quake and doing quake frame rate tests. A full 10deg C reduction in cpu operating temperature. Thermaltake have obviously gone to some length's to design a cooler that really does the job, and I must say , no short cuts here. The next thing to try was pushing my cpu harder, at 130mhz bus my system has never booted cleanly , not until now, I tried to run quake but it locked up. Next I tried to boot my system at 133mhz bus, ( never posted before at this speed ) well I got to the win98 screen and here it would lock up. So this cooler certainly does improve things, by quite a margin , 30% approximately as far as cooling goes over my WBK with an externally ducted YS-tech fan.
Ys-tech 26cfm Fan
An increase of 6deg Celsius going to the Ys-tech 26cfm fan, its very unfortunate that the Volcano 6Cu had a broken blade as the fan was rated at 4550rpm and 32cfm. But and its a big 4deg C but at that, the Volcano sink is still better than my WBK, by more than 10% that is, and 10% is a big margin. I ran both quake and 3dMark2001 demo to record the temperature with my cpu at 1.9v @ 992mhz.( The Ys-tech fan is a reasonably quiet fan, which is why I run it on my WBK sink, and its the fan used on the Fop32 .)
Generic 12cfm Fan
OK WOW 30deg Celsius with a 12cfm fan, just how good can this Thermaltake 6Cu sink be , OK I find this hard to believe , Thats 3 deg C better than the WBK with a YS-tech fan. Excuse me while I go play more quake and run some more 3dMark2001 OK. 30 min of quake and 3dmark 2001 and the same results , 30deg C max. Wow Might just have to run the Ys-tech fan one more time to see if perhaps it was not mounted right. Nope same results.
Conclusion
This is by far the best heatsink that I have tested to date, Not only is it an effective cooler with a puny 12cfm fan on it but it is also one of the few that can effectively use a high output fan, I would really liked to have strapped on the big bad boy on the block , the new Delta 51cfm Fan, and seen how well it would have done. All wishing aside , Thermaltake have another winner here , and if price is of importance to you then this is one hard to beat cooler. In fact Id hate to say it but I will most likely be getting myself one of these Volcano 6Cu+ soon enough, as the old saying goes , if you cant beat them , join them. 9 out of 10 for this product , One point off for the noisy fan , I must be getting old but even when playing quake , the fan annoyed me , otherwise this is one seriously good product.
Supplied for testing by :