Premium Socket 939 Heatsink Round-Up

Reviews: Cooling

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Max Slowik
Kurtis
Sharka Corp
Aug. 29, 2006

Specifications

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Thermaltake Sonic Tower

First Looks

Packed in an easy-to-open blister pack, the Sonic Tower comes with a light-weight collection of mounting hardware, mostly screws and springs, all organized in baggies according to the destination socket type.

This is the only tower that gives the Scythe Ninja a run for its money in terms of size. The heatsink has a wide gap between its two towers, each the tail-end of three heatpipes that run across the base. This gap isn't for a fan, it just looks the part. Fans get attached to the outside of the cooler.

Specifications

Dimensions (L X W X H): 112 X 112 X 150mm
Material: Pure copper and aluminum
Weight: 692g
No fan included

Taking a Closer Look

The Sonic Tower has very tightly-spaced fins, and fan mounts on both sides, even though the cooler only comes with one set of fan holders. It would be possible for someone to mount a fan with another set of fan holders, so that that both halves of the tower have a fan attached.

(This is entirely theoretical, as the Sonic Tower I received included only a single fan holder and no screws with which to mount the fan itself. When I contacted their support staff [via the web-driven claim form, which did not support Firefox] they replied that replacement parts were not for sale at this time, so I suppose that free parts to correct their mistake were out of the question.)

The base of the cooler is rough. While it is certainly flat, it's about as glossy as a sheet of paper. Of all the coolers, it absorbed the most thermal paste. It was the hardest to clean thoroughly; it just seemed like the chammies kept coming away dirty.

Install

Installing the cooler is easy despite its size. After attaching the fan and removing the motherboard's retention bracket, the heatsink is held against the CPU by placing the correct "I-bar" across the base of the cooler and screwing it into the backplate.

Because of the gap, it's easy to reach the screws when tightening down the clip and still see where everything goes.

The Sonic Tower is another cooler without an alternate install method for horizontally-oriented mountings. Standard motherboards only need apply.

In Use

The Sonic Tower installs easily enough, but the space between its towers is enough to allow air to pass around the second tower rather than through it, because it takes some pressure to flow through the small spaces between the fins. Even to the touch, the un-fanned tower was much warmer. Assuming that it would be possible to attach a second fan, it could perform much better.

That would make the cooler very tall and very wide, perhaps even to the point of being too large to fit in some motherboard/case configurations.

Without a fan it still performs alright, but it might not be enough for some processors.

One last thing is that the towers are only supported on their three heatpipes, and they did bend noticeably during handling and installation.

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Page 9 of 12

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Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: An Overclocking Primer
Page 3: The Contenders & Testing Methodology
Page 4: Zalman CNPS9500
Page 5: Zalman CNPS9500AM2
Page 6: Scythe Ninja Plus+
Page 7: Scythe Mine
Page 8: Noctua NH-U12
Page 9: Thermaltake Sonic Tower
Page 10: Thermaltake Mini Typhoon
Page 11: Overclocking & Temperatures
Page 12: Conclusions & Final Recommendations

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