COMPUTER COOLERS

Buying a new computer involves buying a new powerful and big cooler. Especially for those who are crazy about overclocking and upgrading your machine to the limits. Of course, the best way to cool a powerful machine is to buy water or liquid nitrogen cooling systems and these gadgets will dost you a fortune. However, for those of you who don't want to waste so much money on that we present you two of the top coolers nowadays. Eclipse from Cooler Master and Big Typhoon VX from Thremaltake are one of the best in their class.



The Eclipse

Cooler Master has shown itself as very good cooler producer and the names of their coolers are unique too. Remember the old Mars coolers. Well, the Eclipse is one of those interesting names; I wonder why they named it like that.

Eclipse is the best air cooler that is made by Cooler Master as it says on their web site. It is a very unusual looking cooler and it is bigger than most of its analogues. Its special construction of the fan built into the radiators and its form allows the fan to blow the cold air not only on the processor itself but on the other parts of you computer as well. This fan will make your whole system cooler.

Its weight is not small, I would say it is pretty heavy because it weighs 23,5 ounces (670 grams). Moreover, they used aluminum to make; so imagine how big it is.

The fan is one of the most important parts of a cooler and this one has a 66 x 68 mm turbine fan. They used a long-life bearing that should serve you very long. It says that it will work for 40,000 hours which is four and a half years of 24/7 work. I guess that it would be enough for you.

The package that the cooler comes in is the biggest cooler package I have ever seen. It has everything you need there: even the thermo paste to install it on.


The Big Typhoon

I do not need to tell you how effective the Big Typhoon VX is. It is a better version of one year old Bit Typhoon (no VX). Many people liked it very much and now the Thermaltake Company has created a newer version of it.

This new Big Typhoon VX measures 122 x 122 x 103 mm and it is obviously smaller then the Eclipse cooler. Well, we will compare them later.

The fan is the part that Big Typhoon can be proud of. It uses a 120 mm fan that blows not only on the radiator but on the base of the cooler itself and the surrounding area of the motherboard. (There are thermal tubes there on my motherboard that come from the chipset.)

They used thermal tubes on Big Typhoon however the distance between the tubes is 1 mm and it is crucial that there would be no dust. Otherwise the gaps will be all dusty and the tubes will not work properly.

Big Typhoon VX comes in a smaller box and it also has the thermo paste included.


Comparison

So what is better the Big Typhoon VX or the Eclipse from Cooler Masters? Let us check some of the parameters first.

1. Installation and size
First of all you need some place to install it because some motherboards have not that much space to install such a big cooler as Eclipse. Big Typhoon VX on the other hand has a very compact base that you can attach to virtually any processor it supports.
Eclipse is much higher although it is thinner then the Big Typhoon VX so you should choose what you need and weather you can fit it into your case. However, the cases nowadays are big and wide so you should have no problems with that.
2. Weight
Weight becomes crucial when you install the cooler on the vertically standing motherboard. Although I think that most of the motherboards will hold such a weight but I am not sure.
Eclipse with its aluminum radiators and thermal tubes weighs about 670 grams however the Big Typhoon is much heavier and weighs 827 grams. The difference in 160 grams can play a big role for somebody.
3. Cooling
Cooling our system that is what we all want from our coolers. We have tested the two cooler stars and now we present you the results on that.
On the low RPM which is under 1300 the best cooler is the Big Typhoon. The thermal emission practically has not changed when we have lowered the RPM. Besides, at these RPM the Big Typhoon VX has got the lead in cooling the motherboard around the processor. Eclipse is not much weaker but it will still cool your system worse than it would do the Big Typhoon VX.
How about the medium and high RPM? Well the situation is not much different here either. Eclipse is not as powerful as the Typhoon.
4. Noise measurement
Nobody likes noisy coolers and this sound frustrates me very much. At the very low RPM the Eclipse cooler is the quietest. However this cooler cannot cool a powerful processor rotating that slowly. The maximum it can do is to cool down an office 50% load of Conroe 3.2 GHz. However, on the medium RPM of 1900 it does a great job of cooling the same processor with 100% load and demonstrates the noise of 26 dB. It is pretty good. However, on the high RPM the Eclipse cooler is one of the noisiest ones and you do not recommend you to use it at high RPM.
Big Typhoon creates the same 26 dB noise on minimal RPM which is 1300. However, the thermal emission of this cooler is much higher at this state. On the highest RPM the noise becomes 32 dB and the thermal emission is not very different from the low RPM one. I think that there is no purpose of using this cooler at high RPM.

It is up to you to choose which one you would like to buy. Can we recommend you a $ 60 Eclipse from Cooler Master if there is $ 27 Hyper TX with about the same productivity (However the noise level is higher)? Choose from a more productive Big Typhoon that costs $ 40 and les productive but quieter at lower RPM Eclipse

By TECHNOCOO