Performance

The system being used to test the heatsink is as follows:
Ambient temperature was kept to 22º Celsius (+/- 1 degree) and was measured by a standard mercury thermometer.


At stock speeds the OrigenAE C10 performs about the same as the stock Intel heatsink when the CPU is idle. Under load the C10 beats the stock heatsink by 3 degrees.


Most owners of an HTPC system will probably not overclock their CPU due to the extra heat (and often the extra noise associated with it as well), but overclocking a CPU can be a great way to test the limits of a heatsink. With the CPU speed and the voltage increased, the C10 performs about 2 degrees worse than the stock heatsink at idle, but beats the Intel heatsink by 5 degrees under load.

Fan Noise

To measure fan noise we used an IEC Type 2 sound level meter on the dbA setting. Measuring distance was 10 cm from the heatsink fan hub. The short distance of 10 cm is necessary to get proper readings with very silent fans. All fans were tested outside of the case at 12V supplied by a lab PSU. On fans that come with a fan controller or allow control of fan speed in any other way, "low" and "high" indicate the settings on the fan controller.


The 70mm fan on the OrigenAE C10 is slightly louder than the fan on the stock heatsink under PWM mode, but a full 3dB higher at full speed. However, unlike the stock Intel fan, the 70mm fan on the C10 is a standard size one and can be easily replaced if the user chooses.