Spire SP601B3 VertiCool II ™

Heatsink Test – Joe

SUMMARY: Low noise, good performance and a compact footprint.

The good guys at Spire were nice enough to send a sample of the SP601B3 VertiCool II ™ heatsink for a test spin.

Key Features:

• Copper base with dual copper heatpipes, forty five aluminum fins
• Fan 2300 rpm, 19.0 dBA, 26 cfm
• Mounting for Intel Celeron D, Pentium 4, Pentium D, Pentium EE, AMD Athlon 64, FX 51, FX 53, FX55, Opteron, Sempron
• Fan rated 2300 rpm, 25.8 cfm @ 19 dBA

There is a lot of fin area on this heatsink, as a rear view shows:

The base is polished; I used the Poor Man’s Flatness Test on it with good results:

The center appears reasonably flat while there is some fall-off at the edges:

Mounts included with the heatsink, plus the ubiquitous white goop:

I tested the Spire VertiCool II using the CPU Large Die Tester. Noise was measured 8″ from the fan’s intake with a Radio Shack sound meter; 50 dBA at this distance is very quiet 3 feet from the fan.

Fan noise is very low – this is a very quiet heatsink. Results place the Spire’s VertiCool II in the mid rank of heatsinks tested to date (Heatsink Ranking).

I also tested it on an Asus P5WD2 motherboard P4 Motherboard Test Platform with a modified Pentium D 805 to read CPU case temps (both supplied by Directron), with the following results:

¹MBM on-die temperatures.
²50 dBA measured 8″ from the fan intake corresponds to about 30 dBA measured 3 feet from the fan, a very quiet noise level.

A bit of a surprise – I did not expect performance to be as well as it tested – I think the large fin area greatly aided performance. Low noise, good performance and a compact footprint – what’s not to like?? Not for aggressive cooling, but a very good choice for a work/home utility PC.

Thanks again to Spire for sending this our way.

Disclosure: Joe Citarella has a financial interest in a company developing thermosyphon products for electronic chip cooling.

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