Akasa AK824CU HSF Review
Hello fellow visitors, today we have an Akasa AK824CU HSF to review.
These days, overclocking brings challenge due to heat. Heat is every overclockers enemy, to beat the heat we need cooling power. We have case fans for air circulation. Some may have Aluminum cases, as they are perfect in lowering temps, and most of all we purchase big-ass Delta fans to pop on our current heatsinks.
Well today we look at a relatively quiet cooler. One that should be good enough to overclock mildly, based on specs. The Akasa AK824CU heatsink fan is a modders CPU cooler too. It sports a Quad Blue LED for maximum "WOW" factor.
Enough with talk, on to the specs and the test.
SPECS
Features
Supports AMD™ Athlon™ XP 2800+
80mm Ball Bearing Fan, 25mm High
Fan Rated Speed 2,500 R.P.M.
Fan Air Flow 31.37CFM
Fan Noise 27.85 dB(A)
DIM 80 X 80 X 61mm
As you can see by the pictures, this is some nice looking cooling machine. However their is some things that I did not like.
First of all the decision of the 1-Lug Clip is a very bad choice. It has a small joint for a flathead screwdriver to go in, but if you slip you can damage your motherboard. It was a pain to install too.
Second thing is the base. The base needs MAJOR lapping. It was not flat and had small dent holes over the base. In blunt words, I could easily say that the base was simply disgusting to look at. These un doubtfully will affect overall performance. Also the ShinEtsu thermal compound has to go. The compound was hard as a rock too. If these were manufacturing glitches (base), I hope they are fixed.
What I did like was the choice of the fan, a Quad-LED fan that is blue in color and very quiet (27.85dbA's). The sink itself was manufactured very well. No places where it may cut a finger and was crafted with precision.
Testing and Conclusion
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AMD XP 1900+ (Stock Voltages)
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Abit NV7-133R
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Casing is closed for real world numbers (Chenming AL)
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Ambient room temp : 23c
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4 case fans on
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Arctic Silver 3 used
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UT 2003 Demo for 1 hour for LOAD temps
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United Devices for 30 minutes
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Let stand for 30 minutes idle (no idling program on)
Results (UT, United Devices (Ligandfit), Idle)
Conclusion
Without doubt, I can say that within fixing the reasons I have stated in the intro, that performance can be improved with this cooler.
I give this cooler a ...
Final Verdict : 8/10
(Within these temps only : Recommended)
Pros
+ Quad LED Fan
+ Quiet
+ Aluminum means light in weight
+ Build Quality
- The Base need MAJOR lapping
- Base affected performance
- 1 LUG-CLIP is a REAL Pain
- Pre-applied ShinEtsu paste needs to go
- May not be for extreme overclocking
