Cooler Xtreme : Coolers
: Cpu Cooler : Thermalright SK-6
Thermalright SK-6
Another all-copper thin-fin number,
Thermalright's SK-6 is provided by different retailers with different fans.
I got the "bare bones" kit, which
includes everything but a fan. There are two sets of wire clips to hold
a 60mm fan onto the top of the heat sink; one set suits normal 25mm high
60mm fans, and the other set suits taller 38mm high ones. There's a rather
stiff screwdriver-assist retention clip, and there's also a couple of little
stick-on thermal transfer compound squares, which you don't have to use
if you don't want them.
And, of course, there's a groovy
copper heat sink. It's got two banks of 36 fins, soldered to the base for
superior thermal conductivity. The tops of the fins have an ingenious interlocked
design that stops them from being bent when you clip a fan onto the cooler.
It's not cheap, though. The
Overclockers UK online store
has this heat sink with a Y.S. Tech FD6025 fan on it for £37.01 including
VAT (about $US52, or $AUD103, at time of writing), or with a 6800RPM Delta
fan for £38.78 including VAT.
Y.S. Tech make 12 different models
of 12 volt FD6025 (see their page here). But Overclockers
UK quote a 26 cubic foot per minute air flow for theirs, which means it's
one of the 4200RPM ball bearing models.
It is,
in fact, very probably this one, the FD1260257B-2A.
With this modestly powered
fan on it, the SK6 cooler made no more noise than any other 4800RPM unit,
and it turned in a very pleasing 0.62°C/W. That's a big win, for this fan
power level.
I swapped the sensible Y.S. Tech
fan for my non-sensible 7000RPM one, and now the SK6 managed 0.56°C/W -
maybe very slightly better than the OCZ Gladiator with its similarly noisy
fan, but there's really nothing in it.
For the money, the SK6 isn't good
value as an all-out power-cooler, given how cheap the Gladiator is. The
Thermalright heat sink makes a great cooler, there's no doubt about that
- but it's expensive.
But with a slower fan, to soothe
the ears of the less tolerant overclocker, this cooler still turns in a
quality result. And it's very nicely engineered, too.
If you can afford it, and don't
have to pay a zillion bucks to get it shipped to wherever you live, an SK6-based
cooler is worth a serious look.
