Firstly, thankyou to Peter from the Dutch offices of Fanner Group, who supplied the three coolers used in this review. As best as I can tell, Fanner is the real company name, supplying coolers under the Spire and Speeze product names. I have no idea why they don't just decide on one single name, but then I don't run a sucessfull multinational business and they do.
Anyway, on with the review(s).

The three heatsinks I'm looking at today are:

5U213C1H3G	FridgeRock™
	Usage s370 / sA pIII Tualatin ~ 2.2Ghz pIII ~ 1.2Ghz Celeron ~ 2.2Ghz AthlonXP ~ 2200+ (Thoroughbred) AthlonXP ~ 2100+ (Palomino) Athlon ~ 1.4Ghz (Thunderbird) Duron ~ 1.3Ghz (Morgan) Dimensions 78x72x74mm Fan speed 3000 ~ 4000 RPM +/-10% Noise level 27 ~ 35 dBA Air flow 20.13 CFM @ 3000 RPM 27.19 CFM @ 4000 RPM

5T208B1H3T	SuperRock™
	Usage s370 / sA pIII Tualatin ~ 2.2Ghz pIII ~ 1.2Ghz Celeron ~ 2.2Ghz AthlonXP ~ 2200+ (Thoroughbred) AthlonXP ~ 2100+ (Palomino) Athlon ~ 1.4Ghz (Thunderbird) Duron ~ 1.3Ghz (Morgan) Dimensions 74x74x63mm Fan speed 4200 RPM +/-10% Noise level 31.8dBA Air flow 26.3 CFM

5F263C1M3	WhisperRock II™
	Usage s370 / sA pIII Tualatin ~ 2.2Ghz pIII ~ 1.13Ghz Celeron ~ 2.2Ghz AthlonXP ~ 2200+ (Thoroughbred) AthlonXP ~ 2100+ (Palomino) Athlon ~ 1.4Ghz (Thunderbird) Duron ~ 1.3Ghz (Morgan) Dimensions 80x82x71mm Fan speed 2500 RPM +/-10% Noise level 26.5dBA Air flow 37.87 CFM

All of the above stats were taken from the manufacturers website.

Now that we've been introduced, time to see how each one performs. Click on to the next page.

Delving deep into the coveted "draw o' heatsinks" I pulled out the first to be put to the test. Congratulations Mr. WhisperRock. You're up.

First impressions are, as we all know, important. And looking at the WhisperRock (lets call it the WR from now on, shall we?) for the first time, you get the feeling it might be quite good. It's a monster of a sink in nice shiny aluminium, and the equally aluminium (although nowhere near as shiny) fan atop the sink helps give it a sturdy look. Picking it up, you feel like you've been conned. It's very light despite its solid appearance. Aluminium is of course light, I do know that, but this is alarmingly so. Perhaps I just don't know my own strength.

The base is pleasantly shiny. We've been told this is a good thing by oh so many different authorities, as it should mean more surface in contact with the cpu die (as long as that's perfectly flat, which is unlikely). Moving up from the base, there's a thick area of solid aluminium in a triangular shape up from the base extruding into the fins.

This thick lump of metal should be good at absorbing plenty of heat, moving it quickly from the die. Whether that's a good thing or not I don't know. After all, we don't really want to be absorbing heat, we want to dissipate it asap. This doesn't seem like a bad idea though, and one I've never seen on a heatsink. There's no change without innovation...

The fins are almost perfectly spaced, and form an immaculate pattern. The shaping of the sink opens up and outwards from the base, spreading from the fairly small footprint upto the 80mm fan. This curved design will help compatibility with motherboards, since nearby capacitors and the like should fit snugly underneath. These days motherboard manufacturers are actually much better about designing the area around the heatsink, but this would definately be an advantage to those with original KT7 boards and others from that era... any of you guys left?

The clip is pants. It goes on and off fairly well, and doesn't pose any real problems, but once again the heatsink industry has blessed us with the crappy 1 lug clip. I don't get it. Sockets are nice enough to provide 3 tabs on each side, so that the heatsink can fit snugly and securely. Yet practically all heatsink clips use only 1 tab on each side! GET WITH THE PROGRAM!

The fan is, as previously mentioned, a fully fledged 80mm affair. Great for those tired with screaming deltas and whiny little 60mm fans. That'll be everyone then. The WhisperRock is so named for a reason, and it is this hunk of a fan (I can't believe I just wrote "hunk") that gives it the "whisper" like performance. Whilst my specs on the front page quote 26.5 dBA from the website, a spec sheet I was sent along with the WR quotes 31.0 dBA. All I can say is that it's really nice and quiet.

Next out of the bag is the copper bottomed FridgeRock. Nice name.

The FR is almost as imposing as the WhisperRock, in fact standing slightly higher but with a less impressive black plastic fan atop its "shoulders". It's a little heavier, perhaps owing to the slab of copper those crazy guys at Fanner have slapped onto the bottom. I'm not so sure about the use of copper. It was all the rage a little while ago... it still is with some manufacturers, but I think it's more of a cosmetic thing rather than any real advantage. Aluminium dissipates heat much better than copper can; it really is the best choice of material for heatsinks to be frank. Copper is a great conductor, and so I can see how it's use in the base might be beneficial. But if it's just going to get hot, and can't throw the heat out through the aluminium fins quickly enough, then there's no advantage. I'll gladly admit to not being an expert material scientist, and I'm sure the people consulted on the design were such people. So for now I'll assume the inclusion of copper was for good reason.

Whilst a copper base might be a good idea, looking in from the sides gives the appearance of quite a poor bond between the copper and aluminium. I can clearly see gaps where the copper has been soldered (I assume) into the recess in the aluminium sink. This may well only be around the edges mind you, and the centre (where it really matters, since this is where the heat is produced at the cpu's core) may well be much more accurately milled.

After removing the sink from my system I noticed two screws on the inside of the heatsink, above the copper block. In the interests of science (well, cos i like taking stuff to bits) I decided they'd have to go! After swearing at the second screw for a few minutes, then finding a bigger screw driver, I realised that these screws were actually holding the base together. The copper was not soldered on, but the gap was in fact full of thermal goo and held tight with the screws. Not what I expected at all, but makes sense I suppose. Since the heatsink was by now basically destroyed, I cleaned up the goo to see what the surfaces were like. Nice and shiny, you'll be glad to hear. The heatsink is actually incredibly light, most of the weight is down to that little block of copper (as my big toe will testify).

The fan is only 70mm square on this model, meaning a little more noise for the same air flow. Bad, as far as I'm concerned. Big slow fans = good. Little fast fans = bad. Having said that, as you'll see on the first page, this one claims some pretty low numbers. 20.13 CFM at 3,000 RPM and 27.19 CFM at 4,000 RPM. Variable speed you ask? Well, kinda. The fan has a little thermister on it and supposedly slows down when things are nice and cool. In my experience, fans like this pretty much run at top whack all the time. It seems louder to me than the WR's lovely 80mm fan. Plus with bigger fans you get a much less irritating, lower pitched sound.

Another crappy 1-clip.. err.. clip. Grr!

This cooler performed pretty well in my test, although currently I'd put the WhisperRock in pole position.

Finally for this session, the humourously titled SuperRock dundududuunnn (images of a wrestler in spandex with a cape, asking me if I can smell what he's cooking spring to mind). It's the runt of this litter, at 74x74x63mm. But they say it's what you do with it that counts. Lets see what the SR can do with it's baby size.

I managed to get absolutely no pictures of this one, except the exceptional one above. Umm.. sorry.

Not only is this the smallest of the three, it's also the least attractive. Whilst that might be the most unimportant thing in the world, the other two sinks have quite a look about them. The SR is very ordinary looking. Still, we won't let that bother us. This is an all aluminium affair, with none of that modern fangled copper malarky. The fins are cut with great precision, and are here in abundance. No curves here, its a very square affair, with a slight lip about half way up where the footprint increases a little (to accomodate the fan mounts).

The fan here is the smallest. It remains 70x70mm, but is a lot less deep than the previous two efforts. The fan on the FR is 25mm deep, while this one is only 15mm. That means less fin pushing air which means to get the same airflow the fan needs more speed, which leads to increased noise. If taking into account the FridgeRocks lowest speed, this fan is the noisiest of the three. In fact whilst the numbers suggest the FR fan is louder at full speed, the fan here is so whiny that it's much more noticeable. The WhisperRock's fan remains top dog.

The clip remains the same as that used for the other two heatsinks. I won't moan about it, but I really would like to see the 3 lug clips in wider use.

The SR actually performs pretty well. But the noisy, whiny fan means that, for me at least, it's no good. If the WR can produce the same performance with less noise, why on earth would anyone want to buy the noisy one?

On to the results, and the winners podium.

So, here we are. Three heatsinks tested, pretend Gold, Silver and Bronze medals to be awarded. But first, some numbers... I know you all love numbers...

In alphabetical order:

The FridgeRock

The SuperRock

The WhisperRock II

Allowing for the slight differences in test conditions (I'm not a very patient person, I try to get the figures over and done with) the results here favour the WhisperRock II with the lowest maximum temp (full load). I'm glad this is so, since if the results hadn't said so I would have had to doctor them - the WhisperRock II definately deserves to win here. It's a great cooler and a very overlooked one as far as I'm aware. Spire/Speeze whatever are often thought of as the poor man's cooler, but the WhisperRock II really can perform. I'd recommend one to anybody, perhaps not the hardcore overclockers out there. You can stick to your watercooling / 12 fans / freon setups. For the rest of us, the WhisperRock II is king.

I promised you a podium didn't I? Check out the paintbrush skills!

Wow, fireworks too! :D

As an aside, here's the results of the Akasa Silver Mountain 2 taken on the same day:
Sanyo (quiet) fan:


Delta fan:

Related:
Spire homepage