Verdict: The impressively hunky appearance isn't the only reason to love this Whispertec combination
It wasn't the deep-fried banana fritter sandwiches and $50,000 gold lame suits that made Elvis rock. They did, however, make him a legend. The Thermalright SP94 should be a brilliant Pentium 4 heatsink, as it's an absolutely massive hunk of pure copper punctured by three heatpipes. Luxotop has paired the SP94 with a 92mm fan, which is quieter than the 60 or 80mm fans used by many CPU HSFs.
Initially, fitting the SP94 is challenging. The standard plastic Pentium 4 HSF bracket isn't strong enough to hold the SP94 to the motherboard, so it has to be removed. It then has to be screwed into a retainer plate that sits on the underside of the motherboard. This makes the heatsink grip the CPU very securely, but means that you have to remove the motherboard from the case, which is a real annoyance.
Hard work pays dividends and the Luxotop combo offers excellent cooling performance. We tested it in our standard Pentium 4 thermal test rig, which is based around a 3.2GHz chip overclocked to 3.36GHz. When we heated up the chip by performing real-time raytracing in the RealStorm benchmark (www.realstorm.com), it managed to cool it a whole seven degrees colder than it was with the standard Intel HSF. Considering the high-performance Corsair Hydrocool 200 EX water-cooling system made the same CPU 11 degrees cooler, the Luxotop is impressive.
Even better, the 92mm fan ran at a slow speed and produced only a low whirring sound. It wasn't significantly quieter than the well-heeled Intel HSF, but it's a lot quieter than performance HSF combos such as the hairdryer-tastic Swiftech MCX478 .
Luxotop includes a tube of Arctic Silver 5 paste and a backplate bracket with a rheostat for altering the fan's speed. Not included, however, is a manual. This is a critical omission, as the heatsink must be mounted with its heatpipes on its underside pointing towards the bottom of the case, rather than the top to achieve optimal cooling performance.
CONCLUSION
Installation is fussy, but the impressively hunky appearance isn't the only reason to love this Whispertec combination - it offers great performance, and it's quiet too.
