Dr. Thermal TI-T707TN P4 heatsink

Seventy fins radiate out from a copper core.  These fins are constructed of aluminum and have a gentle curve which increases the resistance the air has as it is channeled down and out along the sides of the TI-T707TN fins.  The top of the heatsink shows the center to be recessed which will help eliminate the "dead zone" directly underneath the fan's motor.  (The "dead zone" is traditionally the area where air flow is lessened and somewhat stagnant.)

     

The base as you can see in the pictures, was obviously lapped and polished to a high shine on both the core's top and bottom.  The TI-T707TN rates as a "shaver" for its mirror like finish in spite of a minimal number of scratches.  The feel of the base was smooth and no imperfections could be felt.

  

The clipping mechanism was especially easy to install.  Perhaps too easy.  The clips hook into the stock P4 cooler bracket.  One side of the clip is hinged for ease of mounting.  When I said "too easy" earlier, what I mean is that during installation the clips went on with minimal to moderate effort; so much so that I questioned if they offered as much attachment force as they should.  When compared to other P4 sinks I have installed, the force was decidedly less.  Good or bad?  We will have to see.

The heart of the Dr. Thermal TI-T707TN is its fan.  The fan is a 70 x 70 x 25mm variable rate number that turns 2500 RPM @ 25.5 dBA moving 20.5 CFM up to 33' Celsius.  At the 33 degree mark the fan speed ratchets up until it peaks out at 43' Celsius  while turning 5000 RPM @ 41 dBA moving 40.5 CFM.  This superficially looks all well and good except that I'm wondering if the trip temperature is set to high.  Intel CPUs traditionally run cooler than AMD's.  To illustrate my point, the Tt Volcano 7 is a variable rate AMD product with its low end trip temperature being 25 degrees C.  This is a full 8 degrees less than the P4 Dr. Thermal's 33' C trip.

  

Performance

For comparison, we are going to use our Thermaltake Spark 7 cooler with its fan set at full speed.  In an effort to also illustrate the performance of the sink and not just the fan; we also are going to install the Tt's 70mm fan on to the Dr. Thermal.  This fan is rated (in wide open settings) at 6000 RPM @ 43 dBA moving 49.2 CFM.

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 so that the probe tip touches the CPU core.  Our load temperatures were attained by running SiSoft Sandra Pro 2002's Burn in Wizard CPU Arithmetic Bench for thirty minutes.  The reported results are the average of five runs per product with the lowest and highest results thrown out prior to averaging.  Standard white silicone thermal paste was used as our interface material in all tests.  Ambient room temperature was 21.1 degrees Celsius and at no time did this base temperature deviate more than 0.5 degrees C.