Akasa 825 “Colour Carnival” Cooler Review (Socket A)
The AMD Athlon XP line of processors has been continuing strong for the last couple of years. There have been many improvements on heatsinks cooling them down and now better heatsinks are being released to cool it down efficiently. Akasa, known for their Silver Mountain, have released their Akasa 825 “Colour Carnival” cooler that is rated to cooling up to 3400+.
The Akasa 825 cooler comes in a nice yellow plastic packaging and shows predominantly the coolers fan and rheobus at the front and the back of the package shows of the specs and base.
Specifications
- Supports AMD™ Athlon™ XP 3400+
- 80mm Ball Bearing Fan, 25mm High
- Fan Rated Speed 2,000 - 4,000 R.P.M.
- Fan Air Flow 26.23 - 52,29 CFM
- Fan Noise 21.91 - 38.81 dB(A)
- DIM 80 X 80 X 66mm
Purchasing the Akasa 825 will include the Akasa 825 cooler, thermal compound, a manual, a PCI slot rheobus and an automatic thermal probe fan speed sensor control with some thermal tape.
As you can see, the Akasa 825 comes with a nice amount of items. The Akasa 825 includes best of both worlds providing you the options on choice of cooling. You can run it at full blast, run it controlling the fan speed via rheobus, or you can choose to run the Akasa 825 via the automatic speed control via the thermal probe. The automatic way, when implemented, will speed up the fan speed when the CPU temperature rises and will lower the fan speed once the CPU temperature has fallen cooler.
Looking at the full picture, the Akasa 825 looks very nice and looks very funky. There is a nice looking fan guard on the fan that prevents any cables, and fingers, from ending up in the fan blades. The fan guard protrudes upwards allowing maximum air to flow into the fan. One of the nice things about the cooler is that the fan’s wire connectors are sleeved which helps prevents cable clutter. There is a 3-pin connector if you want to run it full blast and there is a 2-pin connector in which you place the automatic sensor or the rheobus. The cooler utilizes a 3-prong clip that is very easy to install.
The 80mm fan sits on top a black fan adaptor. It pushes a total of around 52CFM’s @ a noise level of about 40dBA’s at maximum speed. On full speed, the fan produces a medium pitched whine will be heard over your case fans if any. In the medium speed, the fan is relatively quiet but not silent. And lastly, in the lowest fan speed, the cooler cannot be heard. The fan rotates at around 2000-4000RPM’s.
Let us take a look at the heatsink because it is very interesting. First off, there was no type of protection protecting the cooler’s base and that was disappointing because it will undoubtedly scratch the base. The heatsink is a basic aluminum heatsink with fins and contains a copper inlay at the bottom. Within that copper inlay, there are circular channels in which air can be transferred downwards. These holes will allow cool air to be flowed down to the CPU, theoretically helping cool processor temperatures even more. The finish and quality of the heatsink/base is another story. The Akasa 825’s base must be one of the most ugly one I have ever seen so far. It is concave and very rough. The circular air channels within the copper are lackluster itself as you can see that it has not been smoothed out thus you are able to see the excess filings of the metals. There is no doubt; the lackluster quality finish of the base will affect its outcome in terms of performance.
Testing
Testing will be conducted on our Athlon XP 1900+ system with an ambient temperature of 22-23 degrees using Arctic Silver 5 that has been running for over 100 hours. Results will be taken with the fan speed running full blast.
Results
Akasa
825 "Colour Carnival" (K7) Results |
Idle
(30 mins): 39-40c (fluctuates) |
Load:
UT 2003 (1-Hour): 46c |
Toast
2 (5 mins): 47c |
Conclusion
The Akasa 825 cooler has great potential but falls short in impressing me with its performance. This is mainly due to the lackluster heatsink quality being concave and rough. It obviously needs some major lapping. Although it did not perform that well, I liked the fact that the Akasa 825 provided users with methods of cooling with either the rheobus, or the thermal probe. Based on my results, I suggest looking elsewhere for a better heatsink/fan combination. If the heatsink quality is improved, you can expect to see an entirely different end result.
Pros and Cons
+
Best of both worlds of methods of cooling
+ Bundle
- Heatsink quality is lackluster
- Concave base
- Excess filings of metal is seen within the base
- Performance
