Tom's Latest HS review - problem!

[kev]

I was reading through the latest heatsink review and thought it was excellent, except for one bit that I thought was both harsh and unprofessional - calling the Super Orb "phoney". I realize that it didn't finish first, and I realize that part of its design is purely to catch people's eye. But any heatsink that can tie for fifth place in cooling (the graph on the third page) out of 24 heatsinks is NOT a phoney in my books. If the reviewer critiqued that it costs too much, that it had could have designed certain elements more efficiently, I'd understand. But the performance simply doesn't bear our the conclusion of the Super Orb being a fake or a pretender - it is at worst an underachiever, and there's a difference. Finally, I think that it is unprofessional, particularly in such a well written review, to resort to that kind of name calling. My advice is: stick to the facts, present them cleanly, and keep the mud slinging and editorializing to a minimum or at least save it for the op-ed pages. There were plenty of other heatsinks there that produced far worse results, and which were spared the bashing. I see no good reason why the Orb was singled out.

Let me pre-empt conspiracy theorists: I do not work for Thermaltake, indirectly or directly.

 

[Guest]

>...any heatsink that can tie for fifth place ...out of 24 ... is NOT a phoney ...
It's only 2 degrees worse than the tech wonder Silverado, with the silver gimic, which probably adds approximately zero to the thermal performance, but provides the excuse to charge over $70.

The claim that the designers didn't know anything about designing was inane. Like the reviewer knows for a fact that the fan vanes are "not aerodynamic" and there is too much space between the surrounding heat sink.
He also strangely describes the Silverado fans as "encapsulated" fans. They are centrifugal fans, or "blowers" and they are often used in heating systems where noise is a concern. It is the amount of air flow from these two fans that is likely responsible for the good performance of the Silverado heat sink.

 

[Shocwavez]

Well if there wasn't any mudslinging the review would be boring right? I agree w/you 100%. I use the superorb and it brought me down a good 8-9 degrees(celcius). Good enough fer me!

:tongue: <font color=green> I LOVE INTEL. It tastes like chicken </font color=green>

 

[Guest]

If I may presume for just a moment, I think the reviewer's intention in pronouncing the Thermaltake Super Orb CPU cooler a phoney was in response to Thermaltake's frequent exaggerated claims that the Super Orb is hands-down the best friend of the PC overclocker. It is true that Thermaltake and its vendors market the Super Orb's performance for those who wish for "extreme over-clocking" (as if the science of adjusting CPU clock rates were somehow in league with death sports and skateboarding). It seems to be a trend here at Tom's Hardware Guide that the reviewers respond somewhat more vehemently to products that make rediculous claims for the purposes of marketing, as their recent editorial on OEM Pentium 4 systems would suggest. In my humble estimation.

"Humility is the worst form of arrogance."

 

[Crashman]

As a mechanical designer with an understanding of the issue, I would say that Tom's harsh words were at least justified. The space is too large, it causes reversion. The fans are too small. To make them work, the speed was increased, causing more of a noise increase than a performance increase. The thing is too heavy and puts uneccessary strain on the socket. The Super orb was a solution to the poor performance of the original Orb, which could not even beat the OEM coolers supplied with retail boxed CPUs. The only reason it has even a marginal cooling affect is the surface area of the vains, meaning that it would probably work almost as good without the fans. The fans are mounted too low, causing heat to be recirculated. The "phoney" lable simpley means that this cooler is not what it pretends to be-it is not a high performance cooler, it is a medium duty cooler with the additional penalties of high-performance coolers, which are weight and noise. The fact remains that it pretends to be better than a conventional design, but it is worse than any conventional design that produces the same noise level. It is designed to look like a superior design without actually being a superior design. The funny part is, the casting itself could actually be good if the fan design was adequate, which would mean raising the main fan and increasing it's size, which would probably result in it not looking so cool, which is what this cooler is about-looking cool.

Suicide is painless...........

 

[Guest]

That's Tom for you. But wait... It was Lord Kyro that did the review. hmm

 

[Zenthar]

It would have been a good idea to include the new Volcano II to the test. It's supposed to perform a bit better than the super orb with less noise.

 

[ejsmith2]

I noticed that it got decent thermal results, but I also noticed how loud it was. My fop38 is loud, but I'm not sure it's quite that loud. Fans that can pull a little more torque might have worked better. Fluid mechanics is not an exact science yet....

 

[Guest]

I wonder if the fan from the Silverado can be mounted on the
Swiftech 462... Imagine a hsf combo that cools like nothing
on the planet, and is as close to silent as they come...

Anyone know if that fan can be purchased seperately?
And if so, where? How much?

Yer all my heros,
BC

 

[jg38141]

Lord Kryro has orb envy. Or maybe orb bias. He places all orb heat sinks together even though they perform better than many of his other heatsinks that he raves about. I personally own a fop, but the thermaltake orbs aren't bad. Saying all orbs are bad beacuse their shape is like saying all sqaure heat sinks are the same and bad because of their shape. Why not just look at the performance? The last test he did was just as bad.

ILLEGALISE BULLETS

 

[ejsmith2]

They looked like any other centrifugal fan, with a cylinder fan instead of an impeller. I bet you could find them online somewhere, but they'd be listed under a different purpose/use.

 

[Guest]

>As a mechanical designer with an understanding of the issue, I would say that
> Tom's harsh words were at least justified. The space is too large, it causes reversion.
When I saw the orbs, my observation was the same as yours. But the manufacturer uses a custom fan design which it manufactures itself. So why use too small a fan for the space? The only reasonable explanation is that the size was the best by actual test, and it is really not too small, but the optimum size. The big problem with the orb is the flat base against which the air is thrust, versus the curved and vaned base of the Agilent that the orb immitates. From that, it would seem all the other design factors need to be revised, leading to a HSF that was pretty good with a low cost, but nothing like the efficiency of the Agilent design.

 

[Crashman]

I think maybe they used whatever they thought "looked" right. Unfortunately, whoever thought it "looked" right didn't have an eye for design. Raise the top fan by about 1/2", put a shroud on it, change the fin design to a curve, increase the fan diameter. On the second fan, increase the diameter and curve the blades. OF course, the shroud on top would cover the top of the heatsink, which would have a negative affect on the main purpose of the original design, which is to "look cool".

Suicide is painless...........

 

[Guest]

>I think maybe they used whatever they thought "looked" right.

Then why did they use a fan that looked too small?

> OF course, the shroud on top would cover the top of the heatsink, which would have
> a negative affect on the main purpose of the original design, which
>is to "look cool".
That would look cooler, although the shroud might do nothing but look cooler. Watch out, here comes Ultra Orb!

 

[Grizely1]

I have to agree. It's friggin heavy and the clips were designed extremely poorly - they're way too tight. people have been cracking their cores all over this damn forum.

-----------------
"648kb is all the space anyone would ever need!"

Bill Gates, 1980s

 

[Guest]

I would have liked to see the ORFIO in there too.

 

[Unolocogringo]

these fans have been available at radioshack for several years GAMMA 28 is on the lable.they work good, a little harder to make mounts for,and some are not as balanced as others which can cause too much vibration if not mounted solidly.but when you compare current draw to cfm of air flow they are better than regular fans. and best of all they are very quiet

 

[Guest]

If those are labeled as Gamma fans, then they are made by Nidec. They actually have a variety of blower sizes available, though I'm not sure if Radioshack carries them all.

Here's a link to the spec page for the Nidec DC blowers.

http://www.nidec.com/dcfansquickguide4.html

A scientist will never show any kindness for a theory which he did not start himself. – Mark Twain