Advertisement |
Firstly, thanks to ThermalTake for sending us this. There's been a large delay in getting this review out, for which I apologise.
So lets see what we have here...
The big FedEx box |
Volcano and friend |
In it's new home |
You see there 2 heatsinks, next to the Volcano7+ is the P4 Dragon 478. Chunky will be reviewing that soon. Note my excellent photography, with well placed flash reflections completely on purpose of course...
The Volcano7+ is clever. It can be used on pretty much any cpu - a socket370 or socket A (for intel socketted celerons and pIIIs, and for AMD athlons and durons) or socket478 (intel p4s) - due to the inclusion of mounting clips for the different kinds. The volcano7+ arrives semi-built, all you have to do is choose your mounting clips, and do up a few screws. There are decent instructions included, or you can surf on over to ThermalTake's website where you will find them reproduced.
I won't try to pretend this is an amazing new never-before-seen product, the V7+ has been around for quite a while now, and has certainly made itself a reputation. Many reviews have seen it take top honours, such as this one at GideonTech (linked to last page, where the conclusion is). So the majority of sites certainly have it down as a performer, and it's no slouch in the looks department either with the lovely sculpted copper, and the stylish sleeve over the top... oh and of course the stock ThermalTake fancy fan grill ;)
I would have to say, though, that it's not all that amazing, at least in my experience. I have been running an AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1200Mhz (AXIA stepping) for quite some time now, and to date the best cooler I've run on it has been my original FOP-38, with a 60mm delta fan (running at 5v so as not to deafen my neighbours
On my system, the V7+ idles at 43-45°, and tops at 50° under load (i.e. mammoth CS sessions). To me, that is quite hot. Gideon quote 31.2° idle and 34° load on their 800Mhz system, which is much more like the kind of temperature I want. However, as long as my computer works fine any temperature upto 50° is ok with me. Above that just seems TOO warm. (In case you're wondering, chips are ok upto about 80°, but do you really want something that hot inside your case? :o I know I don't!)
As I will explain later, I run the V7+ on low speed. I have today been running on high all day, and it's idling at 40-41°. A bit better, but at the sacrifice of my hearing.
As mentioned earlier, the V7+ can accomodate for both Socket370/A and Socket478 cpus. The method for doing so is simple.
 |
 |
| Assembly for a socket370/A system |
Assembly for a socket478 system |
 |
 |
For us "normal folk" with tbirds or p3s, all that needs to be done is to drop the clip (which only uses one notch on each side, despite this thing weighing a ton.... BAD thermaltake BAD!!) into the center of the heatsink, then slide on the aluminium(?) cover and secure it with 4 of the tiny little screws provided. They self tap, but its nice and easy in the lovely soft copper base. For use on a pentium 4 nothing goes through the middle, so you can secure the cover straight away in the same fashion. Instead, the two mounting clips screw onto the side, again using the little screws. I've got to say, the pentium 4 socket has a nice mounting system (except those horrible under-the-motherboard mounted jobbies, ugh... annoying). That's all there is to the assembly, then you plug the fan's header into the nifty speed selector box, and plug that into a standard power connector.
Naked heatsink :o |
The pentium4 stuff |
Speed selector switch... |
Yes, "Speed selector switch..." - this little box of tricks (not many tricks, admittedly) lets you select "high, medium" or "low" speed for the V7+'s fan. On high, its like a jet engine at full blast.. medium is acceptable, but low is lovely. I have mine on low all the time, as I simply cannot stand loud noise in my PC.
It's pretty cool, although perhaps something more easily mounted outside, say a switch on a 3.5" drive bay, would have been nicer. In combination with a HardCano, this could be very useful indeed. As it is, it's a very nice extra.
Conclusions
The V7+ marks ThermalTake's arrival in the big-leagues, finally really competing with the other established cooling companies... Alpha and the likes. As has been shown in numerous benchmarks it outperforms most of todays alternatives, other than the very expensive solutions (and, of course, more wet methods).
You might have been put off by my comments early on, but I do not dispute the fact that this is a good cooler. My FOP38 was good, yes, but it was LOUD. The V7+ is loud too, but only if you WANT it to be. And on low power, its very very quiet and yet still keeps the cpu workin at a nice temperature.
If you're buying a new PC or a new chip, then the Volcano7+ is the cooler to buy. If you have a crappy heatsink thats got your CPU cooking eggs in its spare time, then one of these will help you. But if you're the most serious of all overclockers, then you could do better.
Definately recommended
Related:
ThermalTake homepage.
|
