Thermaltake Blue Orb II Review

Name: Thermaltake Blue Orb II
Brand: Thermaltake

W1zzard

on Sep 20th, 2005,

in CPU Coolers.

Manufacturer: Thermaltake

(8 Comments) »

Performance

We tested the Golden Orb II on an ABIT AL8 i945P motherboard. ABIT's uGuru software was used to get the CPU temperature. Room temperature was kept at a constant 20°C.

CPU:	Intel Pentium 4 3.0F (S775; 2MB; Prescott)
Clock speed:	15 x 200 MHz = 3000 MHz, Memory at DDR2-400
Motherboard:	ABIT AL8, Bios 1.4 i945P
Memory:	2x 512MB OCZ PC2-5400 EB Platinum 4-2-2-8
Video Card:	ATI X850 Pro PCI-E
Harddisk:	Maxtor DiamondMax 160GB
Power Supply:	HEC Power475
Software:	Windows XP SP2, Catalyst 5.7

Idle means Windows sitting at the desktop for 30 minutes. Load is after 30 minutes of two instances of Prime95.

Cooling performance at both 6V and 12V is very good. At 12V the Blue Orb under load is almost as cool as the Golden Orb when the CPU is idle. Not only is cooling performance excellent, but the cooler is also remarkably quiet.

While it is a bit louder than the Golden Orb II at 6V, the added cooling performance sure makes up for this. At 12V it is as quiet as an Arctic Cooling ATI Silencer, and those fans are known for being very quiet. Also the sound quality is not annoying, it is more of an air-flowing whoosh, than a high-pitched whine.

Value and Conclusion

The Thermaltake Blue Orb II is going for around $35, which is really a competitive price compared to similar coolers.

Great performance
Very affordable
Quiet
Supports both S939 and LGA775
Easy to install
Nice design
Blue LEDs in fan

No fan speed control
Little space near memory area on some motherboards
Does not fit ABIT AL8/AA8XE easily
Heavy

The Thermaltake Blue Orb II is a great high-performance cooler. Its big heat dissipating area makes it a good cooler for overclockers who don't want to spend too much money on the heatsink.

Not only does it cool well, it is also suprising quiet when delivering its cooling performance. On top of that its massive blue anodized fins make it a nice addition to the looks of a modded case, especially if your color-theme is blue.

What makes this cooler even more attractice is its low price. I doubt that you will be able to find a similar heatsink from another manufacturer at this price.