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 Thermaltake V1 does a decent job of keeping the E6850 cool. Performance is in the middle of the group, as there are some heatsinks that do better and some that are worse.


When the voltage and the CPU speed are increased the V1 is still working fine. Again, the V1 is performing around the middle of the pack. While this may not sound good, to be honest these are some tough competitors. The V1 is still cooling a good 15 to 20º C better than the stock heatsink and the Akasa Revo.

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 fan noise for the V1 was typical for most Thermaltake variable speed fans. Surprisingly, the top end was much quieter than other Thermaltake fans tested previously.