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OCZ Tempest


Date
: 07/27/06 – 03:37:35 AM

Author
:

Category
: Cooling

Page 1 : Index

Manufacturer
: OCZ Technology

Price
: $49.99 MSRP

When you hear the name OCZ, you immediately think about memory, sweet overclocking friendly memory. The last thing you'd probably think about is cooling equipment, particularly heatsinks. However, the new OCZ Tempest is
not
the first CPU cooler these folks have produced. Many moons ago they released a few heatsinks: Dominator 2, Eliminator, Eliminator 2 and, the most famous, the Gladiator 3. While these products were far from perfect for there time and not exactly what we would consider as top notch hardware, OCZ has come a long way since those days.

The OCZ Tempest is a multi-platform supported CPU cooler capable of removing of cooling the hottest processors around. Our latest review at Overclockers Online will put this cooler to the test on my overclocked Intel D930.

Page 2 : Package

The OCZ Tempest arrived in a plastic box with a cardboard frame used to present key information about the cooler. With the plastic sides, we were able to get a very good look at the cooler without having to open it up.

You can see how OCZ has left the detail to more or less the minimum on the package. On one of the sides we get a table indicating the applications and it looks like the cooler is good for everything out there.

A second table outlines the specifications.

The final table lists a few features.

As you can see, a whole lot of words and not very many pictures. The bottom of the package is a dud as we see just the mounting plates but the top gives us a good bird's eye view of the fan.

Looks like some assembly will be required.

Page 3 : Specifications

As always, OCZ makes it incredibly easy to obtain specifications. Here's a link directly to the product page. But why visit them when we have all the information here! Let's start with the specifications.

Chill out with the OCZ Tempest eh? Anyone want to pass me a nice cold one? :D It's time to open up the package and check out what we have.

Page 4 : Package Content

The contents of this package is pretty simple, we have a variety of mounting equipment, a heatsink and a fan. There's really nothing more to it. We'll start with a glance of the mounting equipment.

Starting from the very obvious manual and going clockwise we have a bag full of mounting plates, a second bag with mounting clips and screws, another bag with a few screws and spacers and finally a small bag with just two mounting clips. The cooler supports socket 939, socket 478, 775 and the new AM2.

With the accessories out of the way, let's pull out the container holding the heatsink and fan….yes I said container.

This little contraption separates the heatsink and fan. I don't exactly see the advantage other than it looks like the fan is floating.

Pulling the fan out, there's not a whole lot of information thanks to the OCZ sticker.

The heatsink, while somewhat small looking, packs quite a punch with four heat pipes and a large amount of fins.

The fins aren't tightly packed together, which has both advantages and disadvantages. For one thing, it means there won't be as much heat transfer via conduction from the base and there isnt as much surface area. However, it means the air will be able to circulate around the fins and remove the heat without causing a lot of noise from vibration. Will the trade-off work? We'll have to see in the coming pages.

Looking at the base, we have a very nice finish – perhaps a result of the titanium coating.

Let's get to the install.

Page 5 : Installation

The installation of the cooler was incredibly easy despite having so many parts to put together. I started the process off by placing the support bracket on the bottom side of the motherboard.

The next step is to flip the board over and drop on the cardboard washer and mounting brackets.

Using the four provided screws, we must fix the mounting bracket to the motherboard back plate. The next step is putting the fan and fan ring together. Despite the manual clearly saying the two come attached, that wasn't the case.

The fan arrived hanging in its own little compartment and the fan ring was fixed to the heatsink. It's time we mated the two.

I dug into the OCZ package and found a few screws I could use to secure the fan onto the fan ring. In order to thread them in, I pulled out my set of screw drivers typically used to fix eye glasses.

Due to the nature of the fan and the fan ring, you could do away with the screwing in as the fan ring does hinge over the edge of the fan a tiny bit. However, I wouldn't recommend this orientation as it's not very stable.

Depending on the socket system you use, you'll need to pull out the appropriate mounting tabs and install them. A fairly simple process and the following photos detail the process.

Tab in….

Tab fixed…

With the tabs in place, it's time to mount the cooler onto your motherboard. First remove the protective base cover and apply a blob of thermal paste. OCZ has provided some paste, but I decided to stick with Arctic Silver 5.

The cooler is held in place with a spring loaded bolt. This combination always ensures proper tension is applied. The final step is to attach the fan onto the heatsink. Thankfully the provided clips make it a thirty second job. Place the fan ring over the heatsink, and hinge the clip over the fins.

The whole installation took less than 10 minutes. Plugging the power cable in, it's time to start my computer and test out the cooler.

Page 6 : Performance

The testing of a CPU cooler is pretty simple. I'll first leave you with the system details:

I started the test out by going into the BIOS and monitoring the temperatures for five minutes after the cooler was installed. This was to make sure the unit was properly mounted. Once that was done, I booted into Windows and stressed the system using two instances Stress Prime 2004. I let this run for 12 hours and then turned off the computer for another 12. After that, I loaded up an instance of the Asus system monitoring software for temperature readings and fired up another two instances of Stress Prime. After three hours of testing, I took the CPU and motherboard temperatures. I shut off Stress Prime and let the system idle for three hours before taking the readings again. I followed this procedure three times over three days and averaged the results afterwards. The room temperature was a balmy 25C for all tests.

Here are the results:

The results speak for themselves. The Tempest beats out the stock cooler by a large margin and is edged out a tiny bit by the bigger Zalman cooler. Keep in mind that Zalman is notorious for high quality quiet cooling components but they run at a premium.

In terms of noise levels, the 92mm fan isn't too bad. It pushes a fair bit of air and is definitely quieter than the stock cooler but louder than the Zalman. Regardless, the stock X800GTO16 cooler is significantly louder than the fan and literally drowns out the noise.

Page 7 : Conclusion

The OCZ Tempest is great cooler if you're constantly changing processors with a desire to avoid the stock cooler. Shortly after testing the Tempest on my D930, I installed it onto an AMD 3000+ overclocked to 2.7 GHz. Using smart fan capabilities, I got the temperature down to a reasonable range with the fan barely humming. The ability to move between any socket system is amazing.

While the CPU cooler does look very nice with the four heatpipes and the shiny fins, its performance was only marginally inferior than the CNPS-9500. Being OCZ's first cooler in such a long while, I'd consider this a huge success. There's a reason why OCZ is known for kick ass memory products and why Zalman is held with high regard in the thermal cooling industry.

The only real downside to this cooler is the lack of availability. As of July 23, I couldn't find this cooler at NewEgg, Monarch Computer, Tiger Direct, NCIX or even Froogle. What I did determine was the MSRP, at a whopping $49.99. In my opinion, the premium is a bit high and once this cooler goes global, we'll probably start seeing it at a more reasonable 40 dollar level.

Advantages

All major platforms supported
Decent performance
Quiet when throttling the fan

Disadvantages

Fairly expensive

Overclockers Online would like to thank OCZ for making this review possible.