My personal review of the Xigmatek HDT-D1264

[deadlysyn]

First of all, I would like to mention that this is my first product review, so if there is anything missing, or anything I could have forgotten, please let me know.

Today, I will be reviewing the Xigmatek HDT-D1264. Let me just say, this thing is huge, but very light. There is really only one real complaint upon first inspection, and that is that the heatpipes could have been soldered to the fins. They seem to be pressure fitted on, which may not hurt performance, but every ThermalRight I have used seemed to be soldered. It has:

• HDT (Heat pipe Direct Touch) technology

• 4-6mm copper heatpipes, with a curve to them to help clear other components like NB heatsinks and memory

• Special fin shape design

• Raised point on fin design to help increase surface area and to spread air to other components

• 120x25 PWM fan rated at 56.3 CFM at 100% and 16-24 dba depending on speed with rubber anti vibration isolators for mounting

• Total Dimensions are 145mm(W)x150mm(H)x129mm(D)

• Weight 663g

• Thermal Resistance 0.15°C/W

I am going to start off with my system specs:

• Intel Core2Quad Q6600 G0 Stepping 1.3 VID

• Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3LR

• eVGA 9800GT 512 MB GDDR3

• Corsair Dominator XMS2 PC2-6400 2GB 4-4-4-12 Dual Channel Kit at 2.1 V stock

• Antec Neo 500W Modular PSU

• El Cheapo case, custom modded for better cooling

• Fans: 120 x 38 Panaflo Ultra High Speed 114.7 CFM@ 45.5 dba intake, el cheapo 80x25 LED blue fan (can't find any specs, eventually going to cut 120mm hole in case for better fan) exhaust

• Maxtor 300 GB Sata II 7200 RPM

• Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2

• CD-RW and DVD-RW, both PATA

Loading for the CPU will be provided by Folding@Home, Windows SMP client and also GPU2 client to really get the heat in the case. Temperatures will be reported by Core Temp 0.99.4, along with eVGA Precision for GPU.

On to the mounting and testing. The mounting was quite a pain in the neck, as this thing is a large top down type cooler, similar to the XP-90C or SI-128. Due to the location of the 4 pin connector, I actually had to plug it in before putting the board back into the case. The push pins were no different than the ones that come with a stock Intel cooler. When it came time to reinstall the board into the case, as there was no other possible orientation for this massive cooler to fit into my case, I had to take a longer screwdriver in between the heatpipes to get the top rear most screw back in. It actually fit in and kind of around the S shape in the pipe. Once I had everything back in place, it was time to get on with the testing.

The first time I had started the system up with this beast inside, I ran without the side of the case on. I noticed that temperatures were much higher than stock, and this thing hadn't even had a load put on it yet. On goes the usual suspects, since it was still within an OK range. The first thing I checked was whether or not the fan was spinning. A quick check of Speedfan told me it was. But on visual inspection of the fan, it wasn't. I immediately powered down, and tried to jump start it with my finger when I powered the system back on. It spun for a second and then died. Thinking like any normal overclocker, it was mod time at this point. I happened to have Yate Loon 120 x 20 fan, with around the same specs. Because of the different mounting of the fan onto the sink, I actually had to get out my Dremel and open the corners of the fan. Upon mounting the new fan and getting everything back in place again, I power up and again, the fan isn't spinning. So I start asking myself, what could the problem really be here? Then I think to myself, my Sunbeam fan controller has 3 pin fan connectors on it. I plug the Yate into the controller, and we have life. Idle temps were exactly identical to the stock cooler. I tried loading up Folding@Home, and temps jumped nearly into the 70's. One core read 69, while the other 3 read 68. At this point I was at a bit of a loss. Surely, this cooler had to perform better than the stock cooler with the 4 heatpipes in direct contact with the CPU.

I tried thinking about it some more, and came up with another possible solution. I would take my Panaflo intake off of the case, and although it doesn't have speed monitoring, install it on the heatsink running off of the fan controller, and disable the CPU fan speed monitoring in the BIOS. So I disassemble again. I take the Yate Loon off the CPU, and put it on my case as the new intake. I was looking to quiet this rig down anyway. On goes the Panaflo, and it is close to the same as the stock HSF. Idle temps had dropped a little bit, but that could just be because of the drop in ambient temps. The second I start up the Folding SMP client, temperatures start climbing and climbing until they break 60°C.

In conclusion, this heatsink is not able to cool a Q6600 by any means, even at stock clocks. I had thought that it would benefit from a fan with higher static pressure because of the fin spacing, but it was quite the contrary. If you are looking to cool a quad core, you would be better off looking toward the TRUE, Xigmatek HDT-S1283, or any of the tower type HSF's. As a matter of fact, I am going to most likely dig out my old XP-90C or see if I can get the Ultra90 out of another rig that hasn't been started up in a while and get one of those mounted to see if I can get these temps under control.

 

[Automata]

Turn the case on its side, see if temps improve. I had one of their heatsinks and it did the same thing. Returned it because it was horrible.

 

[deadlysyn]

I have ran this thing both ways, and the temps didn't change. I bought this out of the classies for $25, so I will see if a friend of mine with a P4 wants to give this thing a go. It's really a shame, because this thing really looks like it would perform a lot better than it did. I may try picking up some nuts, bolts, washers, and springs and see if a bolt through kit would help improve temps, but I fear they won't change much. I know I still have a backplate to mount the XP-90C onto a s775 CPU around here somewhere, so that part would be covered.

Edit: As soon as I can remember where I saved the screenshots from CoreTemp, I will get them posted.

 

[eXcalibur]

get either the dark knight or HDT-S1283, and i don't think it's a good idea to mount fan on top of the heatsink, side by side is better

 

[CGR]

get either the dark knight or HDT-S1283, and i don't think it's a good idea to mount fan on top of the heatsink, side by side is better

Cant do side by side on that HS, its not a tower.

 

[deadlysyn]

I have decided that I am not going to give up on this HSF just yet. As it sits right now, I have the curve in the heatpipes up towards my PSU, and I am wondering if that might be giving it problems wicking away the heat. The only other orientation that works in my case and with my board is with the curve in the pipes going over my RAM slots, as the Dominator HS's are quite tall, and the fins of the Xigmatek hit them before I even have a chance to get it mounted. Also, in the other orientation, similar to what I had done with my previous XP-90C on my old P4 rig, was mount it so the curve in the heatpipes were in a downward direction, toward the NB, but the massive size of this thing hits the bottom of my PSU. Also, I will be trying out a bolt thru, as I have been wondering if the weight of the much larger and heavier fan might be causing some contact issues, but as it stands right now, idling (I am too afraid to run anything to CPU intensive with these temps), I have 2 cores sitting at 45° and 2 at 44°C, which makes me believe that the base is indeed sitting flat on the IHS of the CPU.

 

[Jolly-Swagman]

How did you apply TIM, to heatsink, did you fill the gaps between the heat pipes first, then apply to cpu

 

[deadlysyn]

How did you apply TIM, to heatsink, did you fill the gaps between the heat pipes first, then apply to cpu

Yes I did, following this guide. Although the gaps on this one between the pipes and the base did not look nearly as bad as they did in the pics on that page. It could have just been from the close up shots, too.

I have all of the parts I need for the bolt thru kit, except for the springs. The member that sold me the HSF thinks he may have an extra set, and said that he would send them to me if he does. If not I will be making one more trip to Home Depot, and hopefully get this thing bringing my temps down. If not, the old P4 is going in my wife's rig sometime this month, so I am going to keep the XP-90C with that, and take the Ultra-90A out of her current set up and try it on this quad.