MaximumPC 2005 10

76 MA XIMUMPC OCTOBER 2005

reviews TESTED. REVIEWED. VERDICTIZED

E

veryone needs someone to love, and

every CPU needs a cooling mechanism.

This month we test the reborn Golden Orb

II from Thermaltake and the Nitrogon NT02

from CPU-cooling newcomer Silverstone.

One is wild but quiet; the other is under-

stated yet boisterous. What a pair!

—JOSH NOREM

THERMALTAKE GOLDEN ORB II

The original Thermaltake Golden Orb was

one of the first CPU coolers to deviate

from the established “aluminum brick”

design, and it consequently paved the

way for the onslaught of innovative CPU

coolers that continues to this day. To

celebrate its glorious past, Thermaltake

has redesigned the Orb for today’s CPUs

and added LED lighting to give the device

a more modern look. The Orb II is not a

high-performance CPU cooler; rather, it’s a

totally silent cooler, and as such its perfor-

mance is a middling.

The new Orb features a copper core

with aluminum fins. A 10cm blue LED fan at

its center spins at a constant 1,700rpm. It

pushes 35CFM of air and is virtually silent

at just 17dBA. Installation of the device was

incredibly easy. Thermaltake’s

inadequate instructions and

teeny-tiny screws have always

made its coolers difficult to install,

but this one was a breeze. That

said, the kit includes an adhesive

backplate to install on AMD sys-

tems, and once applied to your

mobo it’s practically impossible to

remove. Thankfully, the stock backplate

works just fine, so we recommend using

that instead of the one provided

by Thermaltake.

The Orb II is the first CPU cooler we know

of to abandon older Socket 478 and Athlon XP

processors. The unit is made exclusively for

Athlon 64 and Pentium LGA775.

The Orb II’s cooling performance is

decent, but not exceptional. We like that it’s

quiet and easy to install, but we’re miffed

about the adhesive backplate. We can easily

recommend several other CPU coolers that

are just as quiet and offer better performance.

SILVERSTONE NITROGON NT02

Nobody can question Silverstone’s expertise

when it comes to building PC enclosures,

but what in the hey-diddle-diddle does the

company know about CPU cooling?

As it turns out, quite a bit: The NT02

is a fantastic all-around CPU cooler,

though not the best we’ve tested.

The NT02 adheres to traditional

heatsink/fan design—it features

a copper base, aluminum fins,

and five copper heat pipes with

sintered metal wicks to transfer

heat from the base to the fins.

An adjustable 9.2cm fan blasts

cool air through a plastic shroud

and over the fins, which also

directs quite a bit of air onto the

components surrounding the

CPU socket. During testing, our

videocard ran noticeably cooler

with the NT02 than it did with

the stock cooler.

Installation on the AMD platform

was delightful: We simply tightened two

screws and were done. The LGA775

platform, on the other hand, required

that we remove the motherboard and

install a backplate and standoffs.

Silverstone bundles the cooler with a

fan-speed controller knob, which you

can mount in a 3.5-inch bay.

With the NT02’s fan turned all the way

down it was absolutely quiet, and with the

fan turned to full-blast it ran extremely loud.

The unit produced respectable benchmark

scores, but only with the fan cranked to max

speed was it able to achieve numbers on

par with CPU coolers that are much quieter,

such as the Cooler Master Hyper 6 + and

the Thermalright XP-90 that we reviewed

in September. The NT02 has a lot going for

it, but its semi-noisy nature keeps it from

achieving true excellence.

Heatsink Hootenanny

Which heatsink/fan is cooler than the other?

$55, http://www.silverstonetek.com

SILVERSTONE NITROGON NT02

ROBBER

Great performance, classy

styling, and adjustable fan.

COPPER^8

Performance is only super

when fan is turned way up.

The 92mm fan blows through an 80mm

shroud, providing cooling to the compo-

nents surrounding the CPU socket.

The Golden Orb II sacrifices all-out cooling

power for sub-whisper acoustics.

$28, http://www.thermaltake.com

THERMALTAKE GOLDEN ORB II

GOLD ORB

Very quiet and easy to

install.

GOLD TEETH 

Backplate is a bitch to remove;

underwhelming performance.

GOLDEN ORB NTO2 STOCK COOLER

Best scores are bolded. All temperatures were measured via the onboard sensors,

using the utilities provided by the motherboard manufacturer. Idle temperatures

were measured after 30 minutes of inactivity and full-load temps were achieved

running CPU Burn-in for one hour.

AMD FX-55

IDLE

FAN LOW N/A 36 C N/A

FAN HIGH 37 C 32 C 40 C

100% LOAD

FAN LOW N/A 52 C N/A

FAN HIGH 52 C 44 C 54 C

INTEL LGA775 3.6GHZ

IDLE

FAN LOW N/A 42 C N/A

FAN HIGH 44 C 38 C 44 C

100% LOAD

FAN LOW N/A 65 C N/A

FAN HIGH 66 C 55 C 63 C

BENCHMARKS