Xigmatek's Heatpipe Direct Touch technology could give be the answer to an ultra quiet PC

Introduction

For those who missed our last Xigmatek PSU review ... Xigmatek is a German based company that specialise in thermal products for PCs, manufacturing products such as heatsink & fans, CPU coolers and power supplies. They were  established in 2005 and have been building a name for themselves over the past year or so. Here's a little blurb taken from their website.

"XIGMATEK Co., Ltd. was established in 2005 with the aim of becoming one of the world leaders in the Thermal field. In XIGMATEK, the major members of management have many years experience in Thermal industry, PC, manufacturing and other applications. With our fruitful experience, we have full confidence that we can provide not only the best, reliable, environmental and performing Thermal/Cooling systems but excellent service also to fulfill global user’s demand."

 

Silent coolers used be expensive and once considered a luxury. However, with today's new cooling technologies, manufacturers are able to produce cooling solutions that's not only silent, but also offering good cooling performance.

In this review, our CPU3D review team takes a look at the Xigmatek's HDT-SD964 CPU cooler. This cooler uses the same HDT (Heatpipe Direct Touch) technology as it's Bigger brother, the Xigmatek's HDT-S1283. However, this time the HDT-SD964 is a smaller cooler with an 92mm fan included. It features 4 thick copper heatpipes which are exposed at the base of the heatsink unit. This allows direct contact with the processor and gives maximum heat absorption. These heatpipes then fan out to a very large array of Aluminum fins, which is then cooled by an impressive ultra quiet 92mm fan which mounted using anti-vibration rubber bungs, and spins at a suprisngly silent 1800rpm.

           

We'll be testing this CPU cooler on our test rig which is comprised of an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 processor (G0 stepping) on a Gigabyte GA-P35 DS3L motherboard. We also used 4Gb of OCZ Reaper X PC2-6400 DDR2 ram, a Geforce 9600GT and a PC Power & Cooling Turbo Cool 860W PSU. It'll be interesting to see how this CPU cooler can compete against the likes of the Artic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro, Intel's standard stock cooler and Xigmatek's HDT-S1283. 

OK let's not waste any more time and take a closer look at the Xigmatek HDT-S1283 CPU cooler.