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Aerocool HT101JR


Date
: 02/10/05 – 06:18:51 AM

Author
:

Category
: Cooling

Page 1 : Introduction

Manufacturer: Aerocool
Price: NA

What we're looking at today is one of Aerocool's latest in their line of CPU coolers. The
Aerocool
HT-101JR
is an aluminum heatsink utilizing 40 fins and 3 superconducting heat pipes. The cooler is part of Aerocool's High-Tower series which is composed of this product and it's similarly designed copper brother, the HT-101.

With hotter and hotter chips becoming the reality, larger and more expensive cooling measures are becoming common. Engineers have the difficult task of finding the right balance of cost, size, and noise in order to deliver cooling performance. Too much of any one factor may be bad and be the cause for failure. On top of these factors, there are also extras that we look for such as compatibility, ease of install, and sometimes even aesthetics.

With those key points in mind, let's begin our look at this cooler…

Page 2 : Aerocool HT-101JR

The retail package is the type that is a real dog to get open. I recommend getting out some scissors for this job.

Once opened, there are mounting pieces, thermal paste, scews, a 3-pin to 4-pin molex adapter, install guide, fan, and finally the heatsink itself. Everything is packaged nicely and in good condition.

With the heatsink on its side, the 40 aluminum fins are visible. Quite thin, they are very easily bent and have a plastic shroud that serves to direct airflow and as a place to mount an 70 or 80 mm fan on each side.

Turning the heatsink onto its adjacent side is a clear view of the superconducting heat pipes that carry the heat up through the aluminum fins where it is actually dissapated. Between the base and the fins is an aluminum section that is detached and reattached when changing mounting pieces for the different sockets supported. The heatsink came ready to be attached to a socket A system right out of the box.

From the bottom are the two screws holding in place that aluminum section. For changing the heatsink's mounting pieces to use on a socket 478 system, it can be a bit tedious to do. The thin aluminum brackets Aerocool includes need to be placed between the base and the section above.

Aerocool includes one fan with the HT-101JR. This fan thankfully lacks any LEDs and just manages to look pretty good all on its own. Because they only included one, I ended up stopping by Fry's and picking up an identical Aerocool Silverblade I 80 mm fan so that I could test with two of them installed as well.

Specifications:

One of the things I like about the HT-101JR from the get go is its compatibility. It supports almost every mainstream socket except the older socket 423 and the newer socket 775; both of the Pentium 4 variety.

So moving on to the actual install, I had to remove most things from the case in order to mount the heatsink properly. The install guide is pretty good for the most part, though some terms were a bit too ambiguous for my liking. My other quibble was with the socket 478 mounting sysstem as it just seemed far from ideal. The metal brackets are pretty thin and can be bent if you screw down to tightly. Luckily, the other socket installations appear to have better methods for mounting the cooler.

One final note: the cooler is quite large, and depending on your system you may be limited to only using one fan. The heatsink itself sits high enough that it won't get in the way of most neighboring components – just the fans.

Page 3 : Testing

Benchmarking analysis was limited to temperature of the CPU. To gain the results, the system was first put under heavy load by running Folding@Home and RC5-72 clients for a period of one hour and then the peak temperature recorded. The processor would then be allowed another hour to cool to an idle temperature with no user interference. This method was followed in the same order for each cooler and proved to be a consistent way to stress and compare the coolers abilities. Room for error could then be primarily traced back to environment variables such as room temperature and any possible human error in taking the readings.

Measurements of the CPU temperatures were taken using Abit's Hardware Doctor. A RadioShack digital indoor/outdoor thermometer was used for for monitoring the room temperature. The indoor temperature throughout testing of the Aerocool HT-101JR was between 69°F and 72°F – a few degrees cooler than the environment the other coolers were tested. This needs to be taken into consideration when comparing numbers.

The test system used was:

Socket 478

Intel Pentium 4C 2.4GHz @ 3.2GHz (Northwood) @ 1.65 V
2*512 MB PDP Systems PC3200LLK DDR RAM
Maxtor 60 GB 7200 RPM 2 MB Hard Drive
Abit IC7-G Motherboard
ATi 9700 Pro Video Card
Coolmax 400 W Power Supply
Nu Tech DDW-082 DVD Burner
M-Audio Revolution 7.1 Sound Card
Cooler Master Cavalier 1 Case
Windows XP Pro SP2 + Latest Drivers, Updates

The numbers look rather dissapointing for such a cooler. I was honestly expecting a bit more performance with just one fan. Once a second fan is thrown on however, the HT-101JR is able to drop a full 8° C – a respectable showing. The best part of the HT-101JR is that with Aerocool's fans installed, be it one or two, the noise levels are just a tad more audible than those of the Zalman coolers; a good thing.

Page 4 : Conclusion

The
Aerocool HT-101JR
is not a steller performer, the easiest to setup, or even the quietest. It left me wanting more, and it didn't matter from which of those three categories. Looking forward, I really hope that Aerocool is able to engineer a better method of mounting this cooler to the Pentium 4 platform and that they can include support for Intel's socket 775. As things are right now though, nothing really stands out about the cooler. Aside from a nice chrome look and its promising heat pipe design, unless you plan to mount a second fan, the performance is only average. The HT-101JR's saving grace is that it can achieve such temperatures without making too much noise, but as a whole I can't say I would recommend this cooler over some of it's competitors.

Advantages

Fairly quiet
Capable of two fans
Compatible most platforms

Disadvantages

Average performance
Socket 478 mounting is far from ideal

Many thanks go out to Aerocool for making this review possible.