Overclockers

Excellent Socket A heatpipe performance – Joe

SUMMARY: An excellent heatpipe solution for Socket A cooling.

The good guys at Thermal Transtech International Corp. were nice enough to send a sample of their AMD Socket A heatpipe CPU cooler #TTIC-NPH-2 (for a good explanation of heatpipes go HERE.)

A heatpipe is basically a closed tube:

Inside is a liquid that evaporates when heated. As it travels up the tube and condenses back to a liquid, heat is released. The liquid then travels back down to the heatpipe’s base, evaporates again and the cycle repeats.

A look from the side

shows the heatpipe in the center – the aluminum fins radiate off the heatpipe for cooling.

The base of the TTIC Heatpipe is fairly smooth:

When I ran my nail over it, I could not feel or hear any ridges.

The TTIC Heatpipe ships with an Everflow fan #R127015DU – a 70 x 15 mm unit rated at 31.5 cfm @ 3600 rpm, 31 dBA¹. I found it to be tolerably quiet – I measured its noise at 52 dBA with a Radio Shack sound meter 8″ from the fan’s intake, substantially less than a Delta 38 (about 69 dBA). The fan stands off about 5 mm from the fins, which lessens noise. It’s also safe to use a motherboard fan header – 2.8 watts.

The clip engages all three socket lugs – I found it fairly easy to mount – and it does not require a screwdriver.

The TTIC Heatpipe was tested on the CPU Die Simulator which gives results that are unaffected by motherboard influences.