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Thermaltake SpinQ


Date
: 02/5/09 – 03:12:41 AM

Author
:

Category
: Cooling

Page 1 : Index

Manufacturer
: Thermaltake

Since Thermaltake's formation in 1999, they've continuously been pushing design innovation – easily making Thermaltake one of the most reputable companies when it comes to looking, ‘Unique, Aggressive, Vivid, and Stylish’ as their unofficial slogan goes.

Today's review – the SpinQ, is certainly no exception – quite possibly one of the most visually appealing CPU coolers I've seen in a long time. Thermaltake has done a great job in the design department with this air-cooler. But does its performance match its intricate design?

Page 2 : Packaging

There's not much to say about the packaging, so let's quickly blaze through it.

The first thing that meets the eye when you look at the front of the packaging is the large window – giving you a peek at the body of the heatsink encased in plastic. Along the top is a catchy little slogan, and the bottom features an image of the cooler along with the name, ‘SpinQ’.

Turning to the left, we see a list of specifications and compatibility – sadly, the SpinQ does not support Socket 1366 as of now, sorry Core i7 owners. Along the bottom of the left side are a few images providing different viewing angles to the heatsink.

On the backside of the box, Thermaltake gives us two shots of the SpinQ installed in Thermaltake's Spedo full-tower case, a few features of the cooler, a diagram showing airflow – and of course, more images of the heatsink.

And the final side of the box is plain.

After opening up the box and pulling out the SpinQ, we can see that the heatsink is protected by a simple plastic shrouding instead of usual Styrofoam- but no fins were bent in shipping, that's +1 for Thermaltake and +1 for the environment.

Page 3 : SpinQ Heatsink

It's finally time to open her up, and take a look at the SpinQ in all her glory.

No doubt is this an elegant cooler and it would serve as a great bragging right to have in your computer. Perhaps the most noticeable feature would be the 50 notched aluminum fins, each one twisted a few millimeters behind the one in front to give it the eye-catching spiral effect. Though it's important to notice, each fin is only about an inch wide – decreasing the fin's total surface area.

Six heatpipes sprout out of the aluminum base and into the circular fins at different intervals around the circle.

Also important to notice is the actual base of the heatsink – although it's standard among multiple Thermaltake coolers, the sheer reflectivity of the base surprised me and added to the overall, ‘vivid and stylish’ appeal Thermaltake was aiming for.

Page 4 : Contents

The accessories for the SpinQ were included in a small, unmarked white box.

Inside the white box was the standard LGA775 mounting push-pins, four screws, a package of thermal compound, and the socket AM2 mounting clip.

Page 5 : Specifications

Specifications were taken directly from Thermaltake's website.

The SpinQ utilizes a patented airflow design – it sucks cold air through the two openings in the side, and the 80mm fan then assists to blow air out through the fins in 360 degrees.

Page 6 : Installation

Installation was relatively simple using Intel's standard push-pins. If installing into an LGA775 socket system, you want to start off by taking the provided screws, and screw the mounting pins onto the base of the heatsink.

Then simply orientate the heatsink correctly with each pin over one of the four holes on the motherboard, and push in the top of the pins.

Page 7 : Testing

Below is the system used to benchmark. To stress the system, I ran Prime95 until the temperature reached a steady state. All coolers were tested using Arctic Silver 5, ambient temperature was about 24C.

Test System

• CPU: Intel C2D E8400
  
  
• Mobo: MSI P45 Neo2-FR
• GPU: HIS 4870
• PSU: Sigma Shark SP-635 Watt
• 4gb OCZ Platinum 1066Mhz RAM
• Thermaltake VI1000BWS Midtower

Coolers

• Thermaltake SpinQ High and Low speed fan
  
  
• Intel Stock Cooler
• Cooler Master Hyper TX2
• OCZ Gladiator Max
• Thermalright AXP-140 with and without 120mm fan

From first glance, the SpinQ didn't produce any stellar results, but they weren't horrible. Though, this is a good time to remember, Thermaltake had to walk a very fine line when designing this heatsink between performance and aesthetics. Quite clearly, the year Thermaltake's design team spent on this heatsink resulted in good light. The performance the SpinQ puts out is comparable to many large, bulky form factor tower heatsink designs, while remaining concise, light, and more importantly, eye friendly.

Despite the performance, the heatsink isn't perfect. Even on lowest fan speed, the vibration released from the cooler is significant. If I increase the fan up to maximum speed and let go of my mouse, Razer Copperhead, the cursor would start bumping its way across my desktop as the mouse shook.

Page 8 : Conclusion

Thermaltake was pushing the boundaries of innovation when they created the SpinQ, focusing on achieving the unique look rather than performance. The performance isn't but for its price, there are competitors who can do much better. Nonetheless, the SpinQ is one of the most visually entrancing coolers I've seen, making it the perfect upgrade for someone who doesn't care about the big OC numbers, but someone interested in modifying their computer's appearance to make coworkers point and stare.

The biggest flaw was the vibrations released by the 80mm fan – they were enough to shake my mouse off the table. As well, it would have been nice for the fan controller cannot be externally mounted, so you don't need to take off the side panel to get access to the controller. Overall, Thermaltake's design team did a great job keeping with their unofficial slogan when designing the SpinQ: ‘Unique, Aggressive, Vivid, and Stylish’.

Advantages

• Visually pleasing
  
  
• Doesn't require motherboard removal
• Light weight with small form factor

Disadvantages

• Expensive for given performance
  
  
• Fan speed isn't externally mountable

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