Performance CPU Cooler from Antec
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Link to the product spec sheet (PDF) )
Antec. It's a well known name. They are well known for their power supplies and cases. However, they also have products available on the after-market cooling frontier. Their latest CPU heatsink is their Performance CPU Cooler. It is advertised to offer "Affordable and Effective CPU Cooling" for a variety of processors, mainly the Intel® socket 478 Celeron®, Celeron® D, Celeron® M, Pentium® & Pentium® M, AMD socket 754, 939 & 940 Sempron™, Turion™, Opteron™, and the Athlon™64 & 64FX lines.
This heatsink will be installed on an Athlon X2 3800+ and will be tested against the standard AMD heatsink, as well as Thermaltake's Big Typhoon at stock and overclocked speeds in order to get a feel for how it stacks up as far as cooling.
Packaging:Front and Back
Upon opening the package, it seems like it has everything that is necessary.
Inside is the heatsink itself with the Intel mounting bracket already installed, an AMD mounting bracket secured to an AMD backing plate, thermal grease, and instructions. That's everything you should need to get this baby installed on your processor.
Installation:
OK, this wasn't exactly a self-explanatory installation. The manual was a great help in explaining what had to be done in order to attach the heatsink to the Athlon X2 3800 processor. Because it comes attached to the Intel mounting bracket, that was the first thing that had to be dealt with. It had to be removed. The first thing that has to be done is to unscrew the 4 big screws that look really cool in the item picture. This will release the black X-shaped Intel bracket that it comes mounted to (seen in the package contents picture). However, after unscrewing them and removing that black bracket, it became obvious that the screws were still there, and that they needed to be removed! Referring back to the manual, it showed that another part had to be removed in order to attach the AMD bracket. This time, it's the parts that actually hold those 4 screws onto the heatsink.
Starting the process, one may think to himself, "Why the heck would they have these screws so secure if you are supposed to be able to remove them?" Those screws were pretty tough, but the first two came out fine without stripping. However, while trying to remove those on the other side... bam. Guess what?
One of the screws came out, but the second one just started stripping. This is obviously a problem. If they are going to mount the Intel bracket and expect people to take it off in order to mount the AMD bracket, they should at least make the screws easy to unscrew and remove, the the 4 big ones that I had to unscrew to release the black Intel bracket. In my humble opinion, it shouldn't come with either bracket attached so that the user can attach whichever is needed and ensure that no screws start stripping. Either that, or they should offer different packages with the correct one mounted and not include the un-needed one. It's just unnecessary work for some of us.
Eventually, that screw was successfully removed, and the other half could finally be removed.
Next, the AMD bracket must be mounted.
After securing the bracket with the same 4 screws, all that is left to do is take off the protective sticker and mount it to your processor. To keep the tests even, Artctic Silver 5 thermal compound for all tests.
From this point on, mounting the heatsink was very easy. The 2 screws on the AMD bracket fit nicely into the backplate of my TT Big Typhoon. Because the stock AMD bracket also fits on the same backplate, the transitive property says that this heatsink should work just fine with your stock backplate.
Mounted on the motherboard:
Next, the motherboard is placed back into the test case and all necessary power cords and peripherals were put in place.
When first turned on, one thing was immediately noticible. It was much louder than the fan of the Big Typhoon. However, it's only a 70mm fan, so it wasn't expected to be silent. According to the motherboard, it was spinning at just over 4100 RPM. The spec sheet specifies that it spins at 3800 RPM and generates 30 CFM of airflow at 34.9 decibels. The Big Typhoon spins at 1270 RPM, generates 54.4CFM of airflow, and is rated at 16 decibels, which would explain the noise difference.
Testing:
In order to test the cooling power of this heatsink, the idle and load temperatures of the Athlon X2 3800 at both the stock speed of 2.0ghz and the overclocked speed of 2.53ghz will be compared. In order to overclock it to 2.53ghz, the voltage was increased by .075v. To calculate the idle and load temperatures, the processor was allowed to idle for 30 minutes, doing absolutely nothing. The average temperature for that 30 minute will be the idle temperature. For finding the load temperature, StressPrime 2004 was run on both cores for 30 minutes. The average high temperature will be the load temperature.
Results:
Click to enlarge
Antec's Performance CPU Cooler seems to be a bit lacking in the performance department. However, all tested heatsinks performed at an acceptable level. It seemed like Antec's heatsink should have yielded better temperatures, integrating heatpipe technology with a high-RPM fan. However, it was still beaten out by AMD's stock heatsink that was supplied with the processor. It was fairly close, with the greatest difference in temperatures between the two being only 2.5C, but it was beaten nonetheless. As expected, both the Antec and AMD heatsinks were beaten by the Big Typhoon. However, in some cases, that was a tight race too, with the AMD heatsink having about the same idle temperature and a slightly higher load temperature.
Conclusion:
Antec's Performance CPU Heatsink isn't a bad product. It can cool a processor, which is what it was solely designed for. However, in comparison with other heatsinks on the market, the Antec doesn't really keep up. It certainly looks like a nice, sturdy product. However, simply preparing it for installation on an AMD processor was made difficult by the fact that the Intel bracket came pre-mounted, and the screws are certainly strippable. It doesn't come with any replacement screws either, so if you strip one, you will have to dig through your personal stash to find a suitable replacement. All four screws are necessary, because if all four are not secured tightly, the mounting bracket will cause problems and not allow for full contact with the processor. When not making full contact, CPU temperatures reached a dangerous 65C. It required about 2 re-placements of the heatsink before these final, suitable temperatures were attainable. Furthermore, with the 70mm fan spinning at 4100 RPM, the noise from the heatsink is quite audible. The AMD stock heatsink has a fan that spins at 2760 RPM, and it was much quieter in comparison. As an after-market cooling solution, this Antec heatsink is not recommended, for it yields higher temperatures than even the stock AMD fan, and it is also louder. For $20-$30 retail at the time of writing, it really isn't worth it considering the mediocre performance and increased noise levels.
Pros:
- Sturdy
- Spring-loaded screws for securing it to the motherboard make for easy removal, as you don't have to struggle against the surface tension of the thermal compound
- Small and fairly lightweight
Cons:
- Comes with Intel bracket pre-installed, creating extra work for AMD users
- Performance is slightly worse than that of the stock AMD heatsink
- Noise from the high-RPM fan is quite audible in comparison to the other tested heatsinks
Overall, we give this heatsink a
4 out of 10. We expected better, and hope that Antec's future generations of heatsinks will be able to redeem their excellent name.
maybe with a diff fan it could be better the the stock solution? Its hard to beat that BT of yours 
heck even my xp90 is better... been folding at 4800+ speeds(2.4) and its loaded at 33 right now, topped at 36 when the furnace came on 
But it it also a big factor for the temps. If I was testing in your house, I would no doubt have lower temps.
