| Xigmatek Achilles Plus SD1484 Heatsink |  |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Cooling | |||||||
| Written by David Ramsey | |||||||
| Monday, 14 February 2011 | |||||||
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Xigmatek Achilles Plus SD1484 Heatsink PrototypeOne of the benefits of testing computer hardware is that you occasionally get to look at a new product before it's introduced to the market. In my time at Benchmark Reviews, I've been fortunate enough to be able to review computer cases and CPUs before they were generally available (or in some cases, before they were even announced). Recently Benchmark Reviews was given the opportunity to evaluate a prototype of Xigmatek's forthcoming Achilles Plus SD1484 CPU cooler, and I tested it to compare performance against a variety of air and water coolers. While all-in-one water coolers have become more popular recently, their performance in most cases still can't compete with that of the best air coolers. Air cooling will remain the norm for most rigs, and as Intel and AMD transition to 32nm and smaller processes, the amount of heat their CPUs produce will go down, as we've seen with testing of Intel's Sandy Bridge processors, which even when heavily overclocked simply don't require the likes of a ProlimaTech Megahalems to keep them cool.
The sample Benchmark Reviews received is, officially, a "Xigmatek Achilles Plus SD1484 Prototype Sample". There was no retail box, fans, fan mounts, or even marketing specifications, so all we can do is show you pictures and report the performance we observed.
Manufacturer: Xigmatek Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by Xigmatek. Normally, we'd put the product's official specifications and features here, but we have none, so let's get on with the closer look and performance testing.
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Comments
They will, however, be the equivalent of a *stronger* fan, able to build a higher pressure. That is good if the air flow is very constricted by dense fins or so, like in the case of the H70 cooler. It's a very noisy solution though.
The question is "How close do the fans have to be before the aggregate air flow drops?" A secondary question would be "How does the introduction of an obstruction affect this?"
Obviously a 90CFM fan isn't going to blow 90CFM through the tightly-packed fins of a typical cooler, but I don't know of a good way to measure this. Custom PC magazine did a fan test roundup some years back where they measured how long a given fan took to inflate a garbage bag of known volume, and that might be worth trying.
Also, for measuring performance, readings should be measured after passing the radiator/heatsink. So even if a 80CFM fan is mounted, I doubt you'll see 80 CFM after passing trough the heatsink, and will also depend a lot on static pressure for sure.
Anyway, I think there are a lot of fans to test in those conditions. The only problem I can think off, is that we should tap or make a tunnel after the heatsink/rad to make proper measurements, I suppose. Here's a simple, yet useful example at Xtreme Systems: ##youtube.com/watch?v=8AmF1Z0M8JY
If we're measuring a fan's output to see how well it corresponds to its advertised rating, we'd need to measure the fan in isolation. The performance with specific heat sinks might be interesting, but in that case we'd be testing the heat sink more than the fan...
The video was interesting, but with no explanation of what was being measured or how it was being measured, I didn't get any useful information from it. I assume the orange meter at the right was showing volts, and perhaps one of the three devices to the left was reading out CFM, but I don't really know.
Oh, It's my fault not to include a link to the specific thread. From left to right: anemometer, sound meter 1, sound meter 2 (on a cellphone, which I don't trust), Fan Voltage. I thought the video was clear enough to see the units, but maybe because I saw it at 1080p res.
I think we'd be testing both heatsink/radiator performance and fan performance.
Here's the link for complete info at XS: ##xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=259802
Regards.
About the model, I could easily read it while watching the video. It's an AM-4836V. Google lead me here: #starmeter.en.made-in-china.com/product/gobQWtUjYLcu/China-Multi-Functions-Thermo-Anemometer-AM-4836V-.html
Ebay could also be an option.
Assuming the fans are placed freely the answer is very simple to detect experimentally: Move them slowly closer until they start to increase their rotational speed. That's when the interaction between them is big enough to notice. (I've done this myself, and the distance do differ with the force and geometry of the fans.)
When mounted at the opposite sides of a heatsink one can easily assume a negligible amount of air to not pass through both fans. Especially if the heatsink, like in the V6, is a closed tunnel.
"How does the introduction of an obstruction affect this?"
It does reduce the airflow, in the case of high speed fans the reduction is substantial, as can be read from the pressure/flow curves supplied by the fan manufacturers.
The typical optimal work-span for most fans is at around half of the free flow, and then it's up to the user to pick a fan that have a span covering the desired flow and pressure applicable.