Today for review I’ve got a CPU cooler
for my Corei5 750 Socket 1156 CPU from Thermaltake called the Contac
29. This cooler truly surprised me in its performance, I put it up
against the Noctua NH-U12P and got virtually the same results in CPU
temperatures. The Contac 29 is an inexpensive cooler at $40, but it’s
well made and produces decent results. So read on to learn more…
Product
Name: Thermaltake
Contac 29 CPU Cooler
Author: Kristofer Brozio
Sponsor: Thermaltake
Tech
Specs,Features or the Basic Info:
High compatibility, no extra
cost for future upgrading CPU
Low noise for user’s comfort
PWM function fan automatically
adjust the fan speed according to the CPU temperature
Including 2 sets of
anti-vration soft mounts allow users to upgrade the secend 120mm fan
3pcs of 8mm heat pipes with
direct contact processed provide sufficient heat dissipating power
Specs:
Heatsink Dimension: 120 (L) x
50 (W) x 159.5 (H) mm / 4.72 (L) x 1.99 (W) x 6.28 (H) inch
Heatsink Material: Alumium Fins
& Aluminum Extrusion Cover
Heatpipe: 8 mm (x3)
Fan Dimension: 120 x 25 mm
Fan Speed: 800 ~ 2,000 RPM
Noise Level: 15 ~ 33.2 dBA
Max. Air Flow: 29.434 ~ 72.084
CFM
Max. Air Pressure: 0.356 ~
1.985(mmH2O)
Weight: 558 g
Price: USD : $39.99
{mospagebreak title=A Better Look At Things}
A
Better Look at Things:
The Contac 29 comes in an
attractive box with specs and features listed along with a couple
pictures.
Inside you’ll find everything you
need including thermal compound to install the cooler to AM3, AM2,
AM2+, 939, 754, and LGA 775,1156 and 775 sockets. There’s also an
extra set of rubber fan mounts along with instructions of course.
The fan comes attached to the
cooler, it’s familiar Thermaltake fan in red and orange.
The cooler, even with the fan is
actually lightweight and it’s well made. The fins though are thin and
can be bent easily.
On the top you’ll find the
Thermaltake logo and you can see the copper heatpipes coming through.
The fan mounts are interesting,
they’re rubber and they slide down between holes in the fins. They’re
hard to get installed and un-installed without bending the fins, but
the fan will stay in place.
The heatpipes directly touch your
CPU, and the base seems to be flat.
Installation,
Testing and Comparison:
For installation, since I’m using
the Socket 1156 I needed to install the mounting hardware to the
cooler. It’s simple to do, just a few screws and you’re done. They
are the push pin style mounts, sop they are fairly easy to attach to
your motherboard.
Before getting the Contac 29 for
review I was using the Noctua NH-U12P, so that’s what I’m comparing
it to in this review.
I’m attaching it to my Intel
Corei5 750 CPU.
The installation process was
fairly simple, but it’s very tight near the ram trying to get those
clips secured. You can take the fan off, but honestly it’s hard to
do, I don’t like the fan mount system Thermaltake is using here, I
ended up bending many fins trying to get the fan un-clipped and
trying to get it re-clipped is a major pain in the you-know-what….
I’m using the short style ram, but
if I was using taller ram installation would be much harder.
For testing I used two instances
of Orthos Stress Prime to get 100% load on my CPU.
Ambient room temperature was 22C
(+/- .3C).
The CPU was at stock speed for
testing.
I used CoreTemp to log the
temperatures and then averaged them out to get the results you see in
the chart here:
The results here truly surprised
me, I did not expect this cooler to perform so well.
Price wise, the Noctua cooler
costs about twice as much as the Thermaltake Contac 29 does and
performs admirably well in comparison.
Now I did do a bit over
overclocking and while the Contac 29 performed well, it couldn’t keep
up with the Noctua cooler. While overclocked the Noctua kept my CPU
cooler that the Contact 29 did, but only by a few degrees, so there
is some headroom for minimal overclocking with the Contact 29.
The big difference between these
coolers is the noise level, the Contac 29 is not loud really but it
is audible, I could instantly hear the difference between it and the
Noctua Cooler. I’m a fan a having my system as quiet as possible and
I couldn’t deal with having this cooler in my system 24/7. I’m sure
other people though have a different tolerance for noise levels and
this shouldn’t bother them at all. Let me just stress that it isn’t
overly loud really, I just prefer a more quiet cooling solution.
Summary
and Comments:
The Thermaltake Contac 29 CPU
cooler is a very good choice if you’re looking for an inexpensive way
to cool your CPU. It cools as well as cooler priced twice as much,
which is truly saying something about the design and quality of it.
Yes, I’d consider this cooler
loud, but I prefer a quiet system since it sits not far from me on my
desk, but honestly it’s not overly loud at all.
Installation is relatively easy,
but the fan mounts can be very difficult to remove and re-install.
DragonSteelMods gives the Contac
29 a 4.5 out of 5 score and our Recommended Award as well.
Pros:
+Very good cooling performance
+Low price
+Good quality
+Easy installation
Cons:
-A bit on the loud side for me
personally
-Fan is rather difficult to
un-attach
review# 640
Disclosure: This product was given to DragonSteelMods for review by the company
for review purposes only, and is not considered by us as payment for
the review, we do not, never have, and never will, accept payment
from companies to review their products.
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learn more about our review policy, testing methods and ratings
please see this page.