VERY disappointed with OCZ Gladiator Performance.

[Ramonetb]

Well, after much mulling I decided on purchasing the OCZ Gladiator instead of the SK6. It was cheaper at only $19.

I had a delta fan from my old heatsink (the infamous black label ones) and strapped it to my new Gladiator.

FIrst think I notice is that the finish on the contact surface of the heatsink is pretty shoddy. My Volcano 2 was worse but certainly not even close to a proper smoothi finish. Definitely needs lapping. (BTW, how do you recommend I do this? Do I have to use wet-dry sand paper? final grade being 1500?) So this has given me the willies.

After hooking up the system again I notice that overall my preformance is only 1C cooler with this heatsink! This is not what I expected from the Gladiator with a delta! Has anyone else had the same experience?

Please tell me lapping will get me those extra 3C I was expecting!

 

[cookedcomp]

First off your are comparing to realy close heatsinks in cooling wise adn second for lapping try useing a 600 then 800 then 1200 Grti wet /dry

 

[el]

I finish off with 1500 but 1000 should be high enough.

 

[max1mus]

something must be wrong cause my goldengate and delta with as2 put the smack down on my thermoengine which is a better sink than you upgraded from and i dropped 10c.but i did lap it in which is a must i feel with this sink, but dont gripe cause thats the best 20 dollars youll ever spend on a heatsink.or at least the best money i have ever spent



good luck i finished with 1000. i found a lapping glass on my bosses desk i may do it again cause its flat to .000004 not exaggerating that what it says.
anyone else seen one of these?

 

[Bakkteria]

Ok lemme look, yup 84FCpu Idle and 86mobo Idle on my pIII700@933/1.8v. Hmm, looks pretty good to me. I lapped mine to 1600. Hasn't gone over 100F yet at load. Fired up seti and its now 95FCpu and 89Fmobo. It hasn't gone over 96F since I got it a week ago and I'm in NC it's damn hot here.

 

[outhouse]

Your rite about them being in dire need of a good lapping but i would lapp mine if it needed it or not just to make sure its flat, I think lapping comes with the territory. Ive had great temps with mine, I lapped mine with 400 to get it perfectly flat then finished off with 600 grit 600 will do you fine but do what ever you feel comfortable with but i would not lapp below 600. You should be happy with this HSF as your the first person ive heard that has not liked it. one thing i noticed is that you have to make sure the HSF is sitting perfectly flat on the die it can be a little more tricky then other HSF's ive tried.

 

[Tab]

I just picked up my 2nd Gladiator (2 computers) and they have changed the finish on the bottom as compared to earlier models. The finish on the bottom of the new one I just got is mirror smooth....like the bottom of an Alpha PAL 6035 (for those who have seen them). The first one I got about a month ago was rough, like the one you are talking about. Worth a look into. I bought it directly from OCZ and maybe they are revamping this model. The Gladiator (at $18.99) at OCZ is the best bang for the buck heatsink in existence. It cooled better for me than the SK-6 which I heard a lot of great things about but failed to perform in my computer. I bought it from 1coolpc to try out(nothing to lose....they have a 30 day money and shipping refund...no questions asked policy) and the Gladiator was 3 degrees Celsius cooler under load!! It is very important to put a micro-thin layer of thermal grease on and to have the fan blowing up from the sink.

Falcon Northwest Mach V
Asus A7V MB
Thunderbird 900 @ 1063
256 MB Texas Instruments cas 2 PC 133 ram
Gladiator HS w/Thermaltake 31cfm 60mm fan(Quiet as a Baby)
Hercules 64MB GeForce GTS oc to 230 core and 415 mem.(Blue Orb)
Maxtor 7,200 HD
rounded cables
Closed case..1- 36.5 cfm blowing in at front...70cfm card cooler on pci/agp slots...60 mm 25cfm and power supply blowing out,as well as a front mounted bay cooler exhaust.......... 35 idle and 44 load (sandra burn in and CPU lite prime program running at the same time)