Verdict: More hot air than a Shamal

The 06-L-0014 is one of the myriad of VapoChill Micro HSFs, which all share the same basic heatsink design and mounting mechanism.

What separates the 06-L-0014 from the other VapoChill Micro HSFs is its fan. It's marketed as the 'Extreme Performance' model, so it ships with a backplate-mounted rheostat and a variable-speed fan.

Unfortunately, as the heatsink is the same whichever VapoChill Micro you buy, the 06-L-0014 suffers from the same design fault - hot air will be blown into the PSU above the HSF.

At minimum fan speed, the 06-L-0014 failed to keep the overclocked and overvolted Pentium 4 cool, so the PC shut down. Revving up the fan to 3,800rpm made it sound as though the lab was being buzzed by a flight of Spitfires, but the CPU was cooled by 5ûC more than with the reference Intel HSF. This is poor for a Pentium 4 HSF, and easily beaten by many other HSFs in this Labs test.

Despite its very loud fan, the 06-L-0014 isn't very effective, and is barely better than the free reference Intel HSF. Considering that the poorly designed 06-L-0014 also blows hot air into the PSU, it really is best avoided.

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