Installation

The installation was quite a challenge. Removal of the stock Pentium 4 bracket was without incident, but installing the new bracket on my IC7-MAX3 was not easy. First off, some of the clips along the side that I took to be part of the K8 system would not fit with the capacitors around the 478 socket. Mr. Dremel took offence to this, and shortly the bracket fit in the intended manner. The next problem was that the Hyper 6 did not quite get high enough to avoid hitting the OTES system on the IC7. So, I ended up removing the whole plastic shroud. These two pictures show the problem area, after the removal of the OTES.

The rest of the install was fairly painless. The clips that actually secure the Hyper 6 to the new bracket work very well and the wiring was also easy to set up. The fan that ships with the Hyper 6 comes with a potentiometer already attached, and a three pin connector with the speed sensor on it. Coolermaster lists this fan on the installation instructions as an option, and not necessary for the proper function of the Hyper 6.

Performance

The test system:

• Abit IC7-MAX3 Motherboard
• Corsair TwinX 3200PRO DDR RAM
• Intel 3Ghz Pentium 4 800Mhz FSB
• ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128 Meg Video Card
• Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum Sound Card
• Western Digital 120Gig 7200rpm hard drive
• Liteon 52x24x52 CD-RW drive
• Super Flower Fan Master
• NZXT Guardian Gaming Case

This is the exact same system I ran the Arctic-Cooling 4ProL tests on, and at about the same ambient temperature (25°C +/- .5°C) measured with the Super Flower Fan Master. The included Coolermaster Thermal Grease was used in these tests. As always idle temperatures were taken after an hour of inactivity, and the load temperatures were taken after running Folding@home and Prime95 simultaneously for about 45 minutes. So, with that in mind, let’s look at the test numbers!

**click to enlarge**
 

These numbers are impressive. Obviously, there is a limit to how cool a device that relies on the ambient air can go, and even for the best this appears to be about 30°C. The load numbers are very striking, coming in a full seven degrees cooler than all of the three heatsinks we looked at last week on its lowest (1900rpm) setting. Turning the Hyper 6 fan up full blast (3000rpm) yields a few more degrees, but not that much.

Just for grins, I removed the stock fan to give the fanless routine a try. This proved to be pretty risky, and temps went all the way up to 64°C before I decided that it was not going to work and shut the system down. The lesson here is that you are much better off trying to squeeze two ultra quiet 80mm fans on the Hyper 6 and running them low than attempting to run without fans.

Next:  Conclusions