Thermalright TRUE Spirit 140 Power - Review and Comparison with NH-D14

[doyll]

Nice bit of testing.

You say it took 25 minutes to reach peak temperature? To me that indicates the case air temperature and cooler intake air temp are rising for 25 minutes. My builds peak in 2-5 minutes.

Here's a graph of my 980 in Define R2 going from idle / surfing the web temp and load to 90-100% load doing 6 encodes and back. Notice maximum tep is reached is less than 2 minutes .. the same time it takes fans to reach maximum speed. Ambient was 28c.

 

[Brando]

try prime 95 large in place ffts. i have 3x 140mm fans at 1100-1300rpm pushing in and the top of the arc midi is almost completely open. i doubt airflow is a problem but i'll try again with some extra room on the bottom for the bottom fan to breath and the top filter removed to get rid of the last bit of flow resistance. I would think the motherboard temp would go up if the case temp was that much higher though. It doesn't budge from 31c-32c the entire time.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Soon I'll mod my noctua fan to fit and see how the cooler scales with higher airflow.

Ehume already did EXTENSIVE testing of this.

 

[Brando]

Ok my airflow was hindered somewhat by filters and lack of breathing room for the third fan under the case. I removed all filters and raised the front of the case with a couple books with all fans cranked to full speed. Room temp is still 77f. Motherboard temp went down 3 degrees along with the video card idle temp. I got a cpu temp improvement of 1c. I think it's worth it but I was hoping for more. I wish I wasn't too lazy to reinstall the megahalems and compare the same way but I'm pretty sure the ts140p is a little better so i guess I'll keep it.

 

[Brando]

Ehume already did EXTENSIVE testing of this.

link?

 

[ATMINSIDE]

link?

http://www.overclockers.com/hotrod-heatsink-faster-fans-noctua-nh-d14

http://www.overclockers.com/pwm-fans-nh-d14

 

[doyll]

Here is what I use to find out how warm the case and cooler intake air temperature is. Clip onto something and bend wire so sensor is about 40mm in front of fan .. and I know exactly how warm it is compared to room temp.

 

[Brando]

Here is what I use to find out how warm the case and cooler intake air temperature is. Clip onto something and bend wire so sensor is about 40mm in front of fan .. and I know exactly how warm it is compared to room temp.

that seems like the best way to be thorough but i think we can see that case temp wasn't much of a factor in this case since my motherboard temp was steady during the test and definitely reacts to airflow. I'll probably get some spacers for the case feet to let the bottom fan breath better since it lowered my video card and mobo temps by several degrees but the cpu barely budged.

 

[Brando]

http://www.overclockers.com/hotrod-heatsink-faster-fans-noctua-nh-d14

http://www.overclockers.com/pwm-fans-nh-d14

ah thanks sorry i meant with the true spirit 140 power not nh-d14.

 

[doyll]

that seems like the best way to be thorough but i think we can see that case temp wasn't much of a factor in this case since my motherboard temp was steady during the test and definitely reacts to airflow. I'll probably get some spacers for the case feet to let the bottom fan breath better since it lowered my video card and mobo temps by several degrees but the cpu barely budged.

I know for a fact what the air temperatures are.
You are assuming what the air temperatures are.
Assumptions are only an educated guess until verified, and for $3-7.00 I'll measure the temp to be sure.

I did just find another TRUE Spirit 140 Power review against Scythe Mugen Max, Armageddon, and Dark Rock 3.
http://www.microsofttranslator.com/...hlung-overclocking,testberichte-241565-7.html

 

[Brando]

it's a very good cooler. if anything this just shows how great the megahalems is for it's size. i look forward to doing this again when i get a 6 core with better tim under the heat spreader so i can rule out the possibility that the heat just isn't getting to the heatsink very well. obviously i can't measure the inner case temp perfectly but there's practically a tornado going through the thing. it can be improved a little with taller case feet though. One thing I hadn't considered is whether the ts140p makes a lot of noise with 2 fans. if it's still quiet with 2 fans that would give it a bigger edge over the megahalems which makes an ungodly racket with 2 fans installed. i'll give it a shot once my noctua fan is modded.

 

[Brando]

time to go off on a quick tangent. i think it would be neat of they took the big 8mm heat pipe concept and combined it with something between the size of a giant dual fan cooler and the ts140p. basically 2 towers with only one fan in the middle to save space but increase the spacing between the fins just enough so the flow restriction is low enough for one good fan. keep the 2 towers close to each other so there's no gap between either side of the fan and the inner side of each tower. you would have a few less fins on each tower but still way more than if you only had one tower. with 2 towers and one fan in the middle it would be slimmer than a fully equipped nh-d15 etc and hopefully not too far off performance wise. a hybrid between an nh-d15, a ts140p, and scythe ninja. SCIENCE. idk i just don't like the idea of a cooler being much thicker than an encyclopedia.

 

[ehume]

From looking at various reviews and from doing my own testing, I get the impression that the Meghalems was built for quiet cooling. Higher airflow doesn't really get you much benefit (link). OTOH, watching you and others, including muddockter (link), I get the impression that the TRUE and the VX will indeed benefit from higher airflow. Would you say that conforms with your experience?

 

[Brando]

From looking at various reviews and from doing my own testing, I get the impression that the Meghalems was built for quiet cooling. Higher airflow doesn't really get you much benefit (link). OTOH, watching you and others, including muddockter (link), I get the impression that the TRUE and the VX will indeed benefit from higher airflow. Would you say that conforms with your experience?

i've noticed in the past that cranking the fan didn't help a ton with the mega. i still need to test a faster fan with the ts140p. i'll try to get to it soon. it SHOULD work better with more flow i would think because of all the extra surface. i have to hack up my 2000 rpm noctua fan to make it fit first.

 

[doyll]

LennyRhys posted a review over at the bit-tech forum here and started this thread showing the performance difference with one and two TY-143 fans at 1200rpm and 2500rpm. His results show two TY-143 fans TS14P performs 7c better at 2500rpm then at 1200rpm. Single fan performed the same.

 

[Brando]

nice. looks like you get about 2/3rds of a degree for every 100rpm over 1200 with a single fan. i'll probably keep it under 1700rpm but still worth it. should come out to about 5 degrees with 2 fans. any word on noise levels with 2 fans vs 1?

 

[doyll]

That's what Lenny got. I haven't OC'ed my 920 hard/high enough to get enough heat to verify his results.

 

[Brando]

i had to mutilate my noctua fan to make it work but it's on. it was pretty much a draw with the ty-140 at 1300rpm. turning it up to 2000rpm got me 2-3c. results are a slightly off because it's a little hotter today. i think summertime is just screwing up all the readings. anyhow the noctua is a really nice fan. shame i had to cut the corners off and drill new mounting holes but it works. thermalright makes some terrible fan mounting clips and they lie about being compatible with 140mm. they feel insecure. if you want the 150,000 mtbf get the round frame noctua redux 1500rpm and save yourself some trouble. if you don't mind using elbow grease and need the extra 500rpm the fan i got is great. if i could go back in time i would tie it on with wires or something.

P.S.

While we're on the subject, do you guys go by max recorded temp or by what it says at the moment in realtemp? the max is always higher than the average but it's the only steady number. the current temps bounce around like crazy for me. If you look at the current temps it makes it look like the thermalright stomps the crap out of the mega but the highest spikes aren't that far from each other. Am I doing it wrong?

 

[doyll]

ehume does some nice clean fan mounting with zip-ties.
http://www.overclock.net/t/753254/ziptie-screw/0_20

I use TY-143 fans as my "reference" fan when I want high speed. Same performance as TY-140 & 147 up to 1300rpm .. but like the Energizer bunny, it just keeps on going .. up to 2500rpm. The fact that TY-147 and TY--143 are available here for £6.19 and £6.99 respectively makes them my "go to" fans of choice. TRUE Spirit 140 Power at £33.77 - £37.06 is "go to" cooler if CPU clearance allows.

Thermalright's Achilles heal is their fan clips .. and possibly the use of such small screws on the mount instead of thumb screws. The fan clips need to be installed on cooler before cooler is installed. The fan clips on Silver Arrow IB-E are better.

Max temp may be a fixed number but it is not a steady reading. It is an instantaneous reading of the maximum temp reached. Which to use is subjective. Sometimes a graph better represents what the temps are. That said, It is the temp I use.

I will run Prime 95 Less than 4 minutes to max temp. No idea why temp dropped a couple degrees as test progressed. Case / intake temp remained the same.

 

[Brando]

is that 980 overclocked? your temps are ridiculously low.