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Introduction
Heat pipe cooling technology is nothing new to
PC cooling and has been used in notebook and small form factor PCs for quite some time. Not
till recently, however, have manufacturers been using this technology on
desktop cooling products as well. The sheer size of most of these new
coolers are nothing short of impressive. Thermaltake, a leading and
respected manufacturer of high quality cooling products, is one company to
incorporate this technology on a majority of their new desktop cooling
products. Today, we look at one of their latest coolers featuring an
all copper and universal design supporting all processors, including the new
Intel LGA775 CPUs.
Heat Pipe Technology
In order to provide more efficient cooling,
manufacturers have been releasing larger heatsinks designed to dissipate
heat more efficiently. This creates a problem, as most motherboards
will not support such large cooling devices. In order to provide
cooling products that are compatible with a wide range of motherboards, heat
pipe cooling is now widely used. This will provide such large cooling
devices to be mounted on a wide range of motherboards without running into
any space constraints due to location of capacitors, etc. For
example, heat pipes can be used to "elevate" the heatsink above
the actual retention bracket, thus eliminating the possibility of it making
contact with capacitors or other obstacles that may get it the way. This
is exactly how the heatsink we will be looking at today is designed.
So what exactly are heat pipes and how do they play a role in providing more
efficient cooling? Well, I'll try to answer these briefly for you without
getting too technical. A heat pipe consists of an aluminum or copper tube that
is designed to quickly transfer heat from one point to another. Heat
pipes do contain a small amount of vaporizable fluid, however, it does not
require the aid of a pump to move it from the hot end to the slightly
cooler end of the pipe itself. This is where it then condenses before returning to the hot
end where the process will repeat. This method of cooling is mainly
used on devices where a quick transfer of heat is crucial for the components
within.
Now that we have some understanding of heat pipe
technology, let's take a closer look at this beautiful beast.
Packaging & Contents
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The Tower112 comes very well packaged and
includes a box with the mounting hardware and thermal compound. Also
included, is an installation guide that will show you how to mount it on all
types of processors.
Design
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"Monstrous" would probably be the appropriate
term to describe the sheer size of this heatsink. In fact, at first
glance, you can't help but wonder how such a large and heavy heatsink can be
mounted on your motherboard. I just couldn't picture this massive
heatsink hanging off the side of my case. Unlike Thermaltake's Silent Tower, it is
made entirely of copper and weighs in at a hefty 3lbs. The copper fins,
all 59 of them, are covered by a panel that is also made of copper and
features Thermaltake's "X" logo on both sides. This outer shell is
designed to allow you to mount up to two 80mm or 92mm fans.
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There are a total of 6 heat pipes that run along
the copper fins and protrude off the top panel. This design is similar
to the Coolermaster Hyper 6 we reviewed some time ago. The welding job is
excellent and they all make very good contact with the
copper fins. The copper base has some
machine marks and is not polished, but the surface is still rather smooth.
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We
were provided with two Thermaltake Silent CAT 80mm Fans for testing.
These are really nice fans that run at about 21dba, yet provide a decent
amount of airflow. The unique fan frame is designed to allow
multi-direction air intake, resulting in increased airflow. These would
be ideal for this heatsink as they do include the proper mounting screws to
attached them to the copper shell. The holes on the outer shell are not
your standard fan screw type holes and if you do opt for a different fan,
you'll have to find some screws that will fit.
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