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Akasa AK268 / AK268-2 Heatsink Manufacturer:
Akasa Corporation By Dean Barker (3/9/2002)
Introduction Thin fin copper heatsinks are here to stay. Up until now, pretty much any thin fin copper sink you saw, was going to have a Delta fan strapped on top doing its best to make like a Hoover. If you have wanted a higher performance heatsink you were basically stuck with listening to a Delta whine. Akasa stepped up to the plate to try and find a happy medium between noise and performance with the AK268. The AK268-2 is exactly the same as the AK268 but it sports the infamous Delta fan and wail we mentioned above. The sink itself is quite striking to look at. It consists of a copper base and fins with a blue anodized aluminum shroud covering the top and two sides. As you can see below, this color combination really does grab your attention. The overall construction quality was high grade.
There are a total of 38 fins that appear to be attached to the base opposed to the base and fins being cut from the same piece of metal. The fins are smooth on both sides with their height being just shy of 1mm from the top of the aluminum shroud. The blue shroud serves a dual purpose. It helps channel the air flow along the fins and out either side of the heatsink. This channeling increases the air’s velocity which is every bit as important as the volume of air moved. Its second purpose is to serve as a mount on which to attach the AK268’s fan.
The base of the Akasa AK268 has seen some high quality lapping. Its polish is so clean and fine that you can read off its reflection. The base measures only 2mm thick which is a tad thinner than some other products on the market. This lack of thickness will reduce the thermal capacity of the sink. Meaning, that it will need to be rather efficient in dissipating whatever heat it pulls off the CPU. This is the primary reason that the Swiftech sinks are so thick. It allows them to absorb more heat. We will see how well the AK268 deals with this shortly.
The clip on the AK268 is nothing special. It is your standard jobber with catches on one end so you may fit a screwdriver in to pry it on and off the socket lugs. Installation went without incident and as expected. The fan on top of the AK268 is a 60 x 60 x 20mm blower that moves just shy of 25.6 CFM while turning 5,000 RPM at a very tolerable 34.9 dBA. The AK268-2 sports a more traditional 60 x 60 x 25mm job that turns 6,800 RPM moving 37.6 CFM at a wake the neighbors level of 46.5 dBA. So in effect we get to see how the sink performs stripped down as well as fully 7k Delta blown. It will be interesting to see how much difference the air flow alone will make in the performance of these products. Specifications
AK268-2 is exactly the same save for the fan system.
Performance For comparison, we are going to use our Vantec CCK-6035. The Vantec CCK makes an excellent comparison heatsink to give you some real world perspective on our test results. Now our cursory statement… No two systems will perform identically, or for that matter, there will be variations within a single system to some degree depending on several factors. Hence our results may end up being a little better or a little worse than the results you may get in your own box. All measurements were obtained by a thermal probe mounted on the top of the silicon of the chip so that the probe tip touches the CPU core. Our load temperatures were attained by running the CPU stability tester program for thirty minutes. The reported results are the average of three runs per product. Arctic Silver thermal goop was used as our interface material in all tests. Ambient room temperature was 71 degrees Fahrenheit and at no time did this base temperature deviate more than 0.5 degrees F. Test Bed
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pages Copyright © 2000 - 2008 by R. Dean Barker.
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