nPower Hurricane

The latest heatsink from Thermal Transtech (aka nPower) features the largest heatpipe I’ve ever seen for CPU cooling.

The NPH Hurricane uses a central heatpipe measuring 25.4 mm (about 1 inch) centered over the heatspreader. In addition there are two heatpipes on each edge for additional cooling.

Key Features

• 25.4 Central heatpipe with two 6mm edge-located heatpipes
• Mounts for Socket 775/1366/1156, Socket AM2/AM
• Size 130 x 164 x 58 mm; Weight 660 grams ex fan
• 45 fins with copper base
  

A side view shows the large central heatpipe:

The base shows two holes on each side which are used to attach the CPU mounts:

The included parts give users a wide range of mounting options. Mounting does require the removal of the motherboard from the case. In addition at first glance you might think this is an erector set – there are numerous nuts, bolts and washers involved in setting up the different mounts. I did find some extra parts for those easily dropped items which is a nice touch, including a second set of fan clips for those users looking to mount two fans for aggressive cooling.

Test Results

The NPH Hurricane was tested on an Asus P5WD2 motherboard with a modified Pentium D 805 to read CPU case temps while running Prime 95 with the following results:

Fan noise from both 120 mm fans was measured 8″ from the fans’ intake with a Radio Shack sound meter and measured <50 dBA @ 1455 rpm; 50 dBA at this distance is very quiet 3 feet from the fan.

Results place the NPH Hurricane in the upper-most rank of heatsinks tested to date HERE.

The noise from the fan was minimal – very quiet – and yet performance was quite good. Users looking for a more aggressive setup could use a more powerful fan or for top performance, use two high power fans; obviously noise goes up. For a quiet setup, this NPH Hurricane turns in very respectable performance – usually you get low noise with a performance hit but not so with the Hurricane.

Overall a very nice heatsink giving users lots of cooling flexibility.