Thermalright AXP-100 on my i7 920

[doyll49]

Okay, here are the first pics and my initial feelings
Opened box and here this little beauty. It looks so small in real life!


Cooler in bag. Typical well packed in foam for protection


Cooler and fan are so nice! Quality is excellent but I didn't expect anything less. Its smaller then 2 120mm fans stacked on on top of the other and only 8mm taller. 121x105x58mm WITH FAN!!


Heatsink base is 40x42mm with 6x 6mm pipes. There are 2x 2mm wire braces from opposite side of where pipes come out that attach into cooler so they can't get bent easily. A nice touch showing the engineers are thinking.

AXP-100 has a 2mm wire brace built into from base to radiator.

The supplied 120mm fan adapter plate.


The usual mounting kit for all Intel and AMD. Not much I can add. Bunch of little screws and 2 sets of knurled nuts
[IMG]http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a331/doyll/AXP-100
/AXP-1007mountingkit_zps2e4978d2.jpg[/IMG]

and lastly the screws for 120mm fan mounting plate, TY-100 fan and thicker 120/140mm fans


This is one very nice little cooler! Good attention to detail and quality. I can't wait to try it out and see how well it cools!

I could ramble on and on with all the measurement and weights but they are all on Thermalright's website.
http://www.thermalright.com/html/pro...r/axp-100.html

All I have to test right now is i7 920 on EX58-UD3R. I'll use Thermalrigth Macho HR-02 for baseline comparison.


I will present my results in bold text. Hope this makes it easier to scan to see results.

Thermalright Macho HR-02
on i7 920 stock
Handbrake @ realtime

Cooler Intake . Idle CPU; rpm; Cooler Exhaust . . 100% CPU; rpm; Cooler Exhaust
21c . . . . . . . . . 30-28-33-27c 650rpm 24.5c . . . . . . 54-54-56-53c 950rpm 29.0c

First pass
Thermalright AXP-100 w/ TY-100
on i7 920 stock (130watt CPU)
Handbrake @ realtime

Cooler Intake . Idle CPU; rpm; Cooler Exhaust . . 100% CPU; rpm; Cooler Exhaust
22.0c. . . . . . . . 37-36-40-35c 1000rpm 31c . . . . . . . 65-65-66-63c 2400rpm 35.1c
22.0c. . . . . . . . 32-3a-36-31c 2400rpm 26c

TY-100 is almost silent below 1500rpm. Progressively louder as speeds increase. There is a slight hum at high speeds.
Noticing vibration noise dependent on rpm.. Smooth to 1500rpm, maximum is 2000rpm and smooth full speed. Assume this is a defective fan and not normal. Tested using voltage fan control and get same so not PWM related. I assume this is a defective fan as I've never had this happen with any other Thermalright fan.

Ran a second pass after 30 minutes idling and got exact same results. See no need to run a third pass. Changed to TY-140 fan and testing it now.

So far at idle 39-38-43-38c @ 725rpm.

[doyll49]

Finding the TY-140 results interesting. I was expecting more of a difference between TY-100 and TY-140. Evidently the 105x105mm fin area minus the fan motor shadow keeps the added cfm of TY-140 from being used to increase cooling. Ty-140 is increasing the motherboard and case cooling and would be ideal in a case with intake vent directly above TY-140.

AXP-100 w/ TY-140
Tested with i7 920 stock (130watt CPU)
Handbrake @ realtime

Cooler Intake . Idle CPU & Fan rpm Cooler Exhaust. . . 100% CPU & Fan rpm Cooler Exhaust
23.0c . . . . . . . . 37-35-40-34c 700rpm 31.1c . . . . . . . 69-68-70-69c 1200rpm 38.6c
24.0c . . . . . . . . 35-34-38-33c 1280rpm 29.1c . . . . . . 67-68-68-66c 1300rpm 39.0c
23.5c . . . . . . . . 34-33-38-33c 1280rpm 28.0c

Had this shroud laying around so decided to mount it between TY-140 and AXP-100. It's 15mm thick. 140mm diameter to 107x114mm rectangle.. fits perfectly on AXP-100 120mm mounting plate.
AXP-100 120mm adapter and custom shroud for TY-140 fan


AXP-100 w/ TY-140
Tested with i7 920 stock
Handbrake @ realtime
TY-140>shroud>cooler
23,0c . . . . . . . . 33-32-37-32c 1250rpm 27.5c . . 65-66-67-65c 1250rpm 33.8c
22.5c . . . . . . . . 32-31-36-30c 1250rpm 26.5c . . 63-64-65-62c 1250rpm 35.5c **
**Last pass I turned base 90 degrees so it was better fitting the AXP-120 adapter mount.

Shroud does restrict fan cfm and increase static pressure.. as rpm shows.
It also makes things quieter mostly because fan is spaced 15mm away from fins and also because air is being smoothly directed into fins and not slamming into the flats of the adapter mount.


I was curious what the TY-100 would do so put it back on and started dropping each test to see how slow it would go before the heat made me chicken out.

AXP-100 w/ TY-100
Tested with i7 920 stock (130watt CPU)
Handbrake @ realtime

Cooler Intake . Idle CPU; rpm; Cooler Exhaust . 100% CPU; rpm; Cooler Exhaust . mobo & NB
21.5c . . . . . . . . 33-31-35-31c 2250rpm 25.5c . . . . 63-64-65-63c 2250rpm 34.5c . . . . . 37c 45c
22.5c . . . . . . . . 36-35-39-33c 2000rpm 30.0c . . . . 69-70-70-69c 2000rpm 40.0c . . . . . 39c 51c
22.5c . . . . . . . . 35-34-38-33c 1750rpm 29.5c . . . . 72-73-73-71c 1750rpm 43.0c . . . . . 40c 54c
22.5c . . . . . . . . 35-34-39-34c 1600rpm 30.0c . . . . 73-75-74-72c 1600rpm 44.0c . . . . . 39c 54c
22.5c . . . . . . . . 35-35-39-34c 1500rpm 30.0c . . . . 76-78-77-75c 1500rpm 47.0c . . . . . 40c 57c
23.0c . . . . . . . . 37-36-41-36c 1200rpm 31.0c; 39c & 46c mobo & NB

I was surprised. At 1750rpm I thought it would get hotter.. Than went to 1600rpm instead of 1500rpm because I was sure it would get too hot. But it actually does okay at 1500rpm!! So you can have a HTPC capable of gaming and still near silent with fixed fan speed. Use PWM and idle at 1200rpm set fan to ramp up as load increases. And about same size as two 120mm fans. Very impressed!


Next I'm going to reverse the fan and see what it will do pulling out of cooler.