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Product:
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Spire SPB601B3 VertiCool II HSF Cooler |
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Price:
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$41 (CDN) / $36 (U.S)
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Supplied By:
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Spire Cooling Solutions
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Author:
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Mars
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Date:
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April 16th, 2006
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Rating:
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Click image for larger view
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Click image for larger view
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The screen shot on the left shows the Spire Verti-cool II at a temperature of 31 degrees with a fan speed of 2100 RPM,
while the screen shot on the right shows the stock AMD cooler with a CPU temp of 35 degrees at a fan speed of 3500 RPM,
the temperatures were taken at an idle load and stock CPU clock speed. We can see that the VertiCool II cooler is
doing a better job of cooling and at the same time doing it more quietly with a larger, lower RPM fan than the stock
AMD cooler.
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Click image for larger view
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Click image for larger view
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The screen shot on the left shows the Spire VertiCool II at a temperature of 38 degrees with a fan speed of 2100 RPM,
while the screen shot on the right shows the stock AMD cooler with a CPU temp of 43 degrees at a fan speed of 3500 RPM,
the temperatures where taken at full load and stock CPU clock speed. Here we can see that the Vert-Cool II is able to
cool the CPU better than the stock AMD cooler, and even best itself by 1 degree from a load temperature rating.
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Click image for larger view
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Click image for larger view
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The screen shot on the left shows the Spire VertiCool II at a temperature of 38 degrees with a fan speed of 2100 RPM,
while the screen shot on the right shows the stock AMD cooler with a CPU temp of 49 degrees at a fan speed of 2300 RPM,
the temperatures were taken at full load and an overclocked CPU speed of 2.2GHz. This is where the VertiCool II shines
as the temperature did not increase at an overclocked speed, unlike the stock cooler which increased by 6 degrees from
its stock speed under load. Furthermore the VertiCool II is 11 degrees cooler than the stock AMD cooler. In this last
benchmark I cheated a bit, in that I lowered the stock coolers fan speed to just about the same as the Spire coolers
speed to keep the noise level at par with each other. The AMD cooler does benefit from higher fan speeds, but with a
noise level increase as well. This just further solidifies Spire's claims of better cooling with less noise.
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Conclusion:
No matter what I threw at the Spire SPB601B3 VertiCool II from stock speeds under load to overclocked speeds under load,
the cooler was up to the task only showing 8 degree increase overall, while the AMD cooler showed an overall increase
of 14 degrees. The VertiCool II was also able to achieve this maintaining a lower RPM fan speed thus being much quieter
than the stock cooler. I also noticed that the recovery rate of the cooler to be somewhat impressive as well, needing
only a few seconds of fan operation to quickly cool the CPU from a high temperature that derived from me disconnecting
the fan and allowing the CPU’s heat to accumulate. Spire has created an excellent well performing, quiet CPU cooler and
despite the poor installation manual, and trivial mounting problems I encountered I am awarding the Spire VertiCool II
a final rating of 9 out of 10. If you have any questions
regarding this review, be sure to visit the Spire Cooling Solutions
website for more information or discuss them in our forums.
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Pros:
- Quieter than stock
- Good performance
- Can use any 80mm fan
- Better performance than some larger coolers
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Cons:
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Error processing SSI file
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Error processing SSI file
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