Keep those CPUs cool, that’s the main
thing most people worry about with their computers, and for the most
part the stock coolers do a decent job, but there are those of use
that desire to keep our CPUs running cooler than the stock solution
can provide. We all know that the cooler the CPU is the longer it
will last, at least theoretically, and of course if the CPU is cooler
there is always room for a bit of overclocking as well to eek out a
bit more performance.
Up on the review block today I’ve got
one from Xigmatek, it’s the SD964 HDT CPU cooler, not a real fancy
name, but then again what’s in a name right? It really doesn’t matter
what it’s called as long as it performs! The SD964 is a small
heatpipe style CPU cooler, at least in comparison to others on the
market today, but it is by no means small in terms of performance.
The SD964 dominates over most others out there in our tests on both
C2D and C2Q CPUs…
Xigmatek
SD964 HDT CPU Cooler
Author: Kristofer
Brozio
Sponsor:
Xigmatek
Tech
Specs,Features or the Basic Info:
Heat-pipe Direct Touch
Inherited H.D.T. series
outstanding performance,HDT-SD964 offers users one more option of
using Double Fans and 4pcs Φ6mm heat-pipe. With Anti-vibration
rubber, light material fin design and Push-pin/Clip for Intel &
AMD, HDT-SD964 is user friendly, easy to install, reliable and
excellent performing.
Overview:
-An outstanding performance air
cooler with heat-pipe direct touch CPU, HDT-SD964 creates most
efficient heat conduction and option of Double fans installed to
provide efficient air flow.
-With anti-vibration rubber for
fan and 3 in 1 application retention module design, it provides users
not only easier and quicker installation, but also lowest noise
level.
-It combines 92mm PWM fan,
anti-vibration rubber, and 4pcs Φ6mm heat-pipe.
Features:
-H.D.T. (Heat-pipe direct
touch) technology.
-Anti-vibration rubber design.
-Option of Double fans
installed design.
-4pcs high performance U type
heat-pipe.
-Light weight.
-High performance, easy
installation.
-92mm highly efficient PWM fan.
-3 in 1 application: LGA775:
push-pin / K8 & AM2: tool-less clip.
Specs:
Product Name: HDT-SD964
Product Number: CAC-S9HH4-U01
Heat
Sink:
-Base Material: Copper
(Heat-pipe Direct Touch)
-Fin Material: Aluminum Alloy
Heat-pipe:
Heat-pipe SPEC: Φ6mm
Heat-pipe Q’ty: 4 pcs.
Fan:
Dimension: 92(W) x 92(H) x
25(D) mm
Voltage Rating: 12V
Speed: 1200~2800 R.P.M.
Bearing Type: Rifle Bearing
Air Flow: 39~54.6 CFM
Air Pressure: 1.7~3.3 mmH2O
Life Expectance: 50000 hrs
Noise Level: 22~34 dBA
Connector: 4 pin with PWM
Dimension: 92(W) x 51(H) x
133(D) mm
Thermal Resistance: 0.18?/W
Weight: 466g (w/fan)
Application:
All Intel Socket 775 CPU
Core2 Extreme / Quad / Duo
Pentium Extreme Edition / D
Celeron D
All AMD Socket AM2 / 754 / 939
/ 940 CPU
Athlon 64 / FX / X2 / Opteron /
Sempron
A
Better Look at Things:
The Xigmatek SD964 CPU Cooler
comes in a nice little box with lots of information all over it, and
on the front of the box is a small window that shows of the included
fan.
The fan and the cooler itself are
packaged separately with two pieces of styrofoam, and there’s a user
manual tucked on the side.
The included fan is a Xigmatek
92mm fan that is rated for 1200 to 2800RPMs.
Included also is a bag of parts of
course with eight rubber fan mounts, molex adapter, AMD and Intel
motherboard mounts, white thermal compound and a couple of screws as
well.
The SD964 is a heatpipe, tower
style CPU cooler, there are four U-shaped heatpipes going up through
numerous aluminum fins. The SD964 is compact, and very well made, the
small size should allow it to fit in most any case but the smallest
SFF or HTPC cases out there today.
The base appears flat and has a
semi-polished finish to it, since this is an HDT, or Heatpipe Direct
Touch cooler there is no base as you would see on other coolers, the
heatpipes rest directly on the CPU.
Installation,
Testing and Comparison:
The first step I the installation
process is to attach the LGA775 Socket clips, these are the familiar
push-pin style clips that work well with smaller and lighter coolers.
The clips are easily installed with two screws, one on each side of
the base of the Xigmatek SD964.
The nest step would be to mount
the fan top the cooler, but first you’ll need to attach the rubber
fan mounts to the fan, these are just push and pulled through the
holes in the fan. You just have to pay attention to which side of the
fan you put them on, and also you need to be fairly careful as from
my experience they can rip if too much force is applied to them.
Xigmatek did include eight fan mounts so you can add another fan if
you wish, but I think it would have been nice had they also included
a couple extra as they tend to rip if you’re not careful. One note is
that it is easier to mount the cooler to your motherboard before
attaching the fan to the cooler, but it can be mounted while the fan
is attached as well, it’s just a bit difficult stretching and bending
your fingers to lock the clips down…
I installed the Xigmatek SD964 CPU
Cooler to my Gigabyte G33M microATX motherboard with no problems at
all, this cooler is pretty small so there were no clearance issues at
all, and it should fit in most any case, with the exception of
possibly some SFF and HTPC cases, depending on configurations.
In the following charts you’ll see
temperatures for testing on C2D6420 and C2Q6600.
To achieve load on the CPUs I used
Orthos Stress Prime and CoreTemp to record the results and average
them out. Testing was done one week on C2Q and one week on C2D,
running Orthos several times per day, for several hours per day.
Ambient temperature during all testing was 19C (+/- .3C).
In the following chart I’ve used
the included white thermal compound testing results running on
C2D6420 CPU, just to give an idea of what one could expect with the
stock thermal goo.
In the following charts all of
these coolers are using Arctic Cooling MX-2 thermal compound for
comparison and I’ve only included the top ten coolers from our
comparisons in them where applicable.
In this next chart we have testing
on C2Q6420 with the Xigmatek fan connected to a molex connection,
meaning it’s running at it’s full rated speed. When the fan is
running at full speed it is a bit loud, I could easily hear it over
the rest of the system, but it’s not overly loud as to be annoying.
We see the SD964 beats our current
top cooler by one degree…
Now we’ve got the SD964 running
with the fan connected to the CPU header on the motherboard, or PWM
controlled. The fan is virtually silent when connected to CPU header.
Here again we see a one degree
advantage over the top cooler in our comparisons…
For the final test on the C2D6420
CPU I’ve removed the fan to see how it performs.
Considering it’s so small the
results are not bad, but not that good either. Remember though this
cooler isn’t meant to be run without a fan, but I like to test it to
see anyway to get an idea of the performance.
Ok, now we’ve got our testing on
the C2Q6600 CPU, here we can find out how it handles a quad core CPU.
First up is with the fan connected
to the CPU header or PWM controlled:
A decent performance really,
especially when compared to the other coolers we’ve got in the
charts, especially considering the SD964 is running a 92mm fan at a
fairly low speed, and most of the other coolers are running a 120mm
fan.
Now we’ve got testing with the fan
connected to the Molex, or running at full speed:
With the Xigmatek fan running at
full speed we see a huge performance increase is cooling, moving it
straight to the top of the charts.
And finally we’ve got results for
running the SD964 with no fan at all on the C2Q6600:
Not great, but not bad either,
about 10 degrees below the max temp for the C2Q6600 CPU. Again
though, the SD964 is not meant to be run without a fan, but it does
give us a nice idea of what could happen if the fan dies, and from
these results we see that the processor will survive unscathed…
Summary
and Comments:
The Xigmatek SD964 might be a
small sized cooler but it’s big in performance, dominating most other
coolers in our comparisons.
The SD964 is very well made, and
when running connected to the CPU header it’s virtually silent as
well, but still with great performance.
It is a bit loud when the fan is
running at full speed, but the increase in performance might be worth
it to some for the bit of noise added to the system.
DragonSteelMods gives the Xigmatek
SD964 HDT CPU Cooler a 5 out of 5 score and our Editor’s Choice Award
as well.
Pros:
-Excellent performance
-Small size
-Easy installation
-Extra fan mounts included
-Very well made
Cons:
-A bit loud when fan running at
full speed
I would like to thank Xigmatek for the chance to review the HDT
SD964 CPU Cooler and for their continued support of DSM.
review# 475