Socket-A Cooler Roundup: September 2001
by Tillmann Steinbrecher on September 7, 2001 3:19 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Thermaltake Dragon Orb 3
Thermaltake's previous coolers often had an interesting outlook, and their
Dragon Orb follows this tradition:
Previous Thermaltake 'Orb' models had the fan integrated into the heatsink. This, however, limited fan size. With the Dragon Orb, Thermaltake solves this problem by mounting the fan on top of the cooler. The lower part of the cooler looks similar (but not identical) to older Orb models; the fan is mounted in an aluminum case with a copper-color andoization. The heatsink features a copper inlay, which makes it quite heavy.
The copper core features it's own little copper heatsink. However, it is
located directly below the fan motor, so it can't take advantage of much
air flow.
Installation and clip
The Dragon Orb is quite heavy, but thanks to its good clip, which uses all six
cleats on the socket, can be fixed safely.
Performance and noise, conclusion
We tested two version of the Dragon Orb: One with 3000rpm fan, and one with
7000rpm fan. Noise-wise, the 7000rpm version was even a little worse than the
Delta 7000rpm fan, but performance-wise, the Dragon Orb is quite a bit behind
other recent coolers equiped with that 7000rpm fan - so we can't recommend the
high RPM version for overclockers. We don't recommend the 3000rpm version for
a quiet PC either - it is too loud for the cooling performance it provides (even
though it is still efficient enough to cool all current non-overclocked Socket
A/370 CPUs).
| Thermaltake Dragon Orb |
|
Fan: Evercool 60x25mm style without case (7000rpm or 3000rpm)
Price: Around $32 |
| Advantages |
|
| Disadvantages |
|
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