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ThermalRight SP-97 Heatpipe Cooler

Performance

To give you a better idea of the ThermalRight SP-97's performance we compared it to the ThermalRight ALX-800.  Ambient room temperature was 22.1 degrees Celsius and did not fluctuate more than .3 degrees during testing.  A Thermaltake SmartFan 2 was used on both coolers.  The fan was set to run at full speed which moves approximately 76 CFM.  Generic silicone thermal paste was used in all tests that were run in an open case environment.

Load temperatures we taken following our running SiSoft Sandra 2004 Pro's CPU burn in program for thirty minutes.  This was done five times per product with the highest and lowest scores for each thrown out.  The remaining three results per sink were then averaged and that is what you see here.

Test Bed

  • AMD Athlon XP 2400+

  • ABIT KV7 (KT600) mainboard

  • VisionTek Radeon 9800 XT VGA

  • 512 mb DIMM of OCZ PC 3200 DDR

  • Maxtor 80gb SATA HDD

  • Generic CD-ROM

  • Windows XP Pro

Results

Conclusion

The king is dead, long live the king.  The ThermalRight SP-97 now takes the crown of being the best performing air cooler we have ever tested here.  The all copper construction with the three heatpipes allowed the SP-97 to shave off almost a full two degrees Celsius off the performance of its hybrid brother the ALX-800. 

The ability to run 92mm fans be they 25 or 38mm thick in addition to standard 80mm fans should not be quickly forgotten.  A 92 x 92 x 25 mm fan is a nice high flow acceptable noise option for coolers that can handle that sized fan.  The SP-97 is one of the few that can.  The fan mounting clips long known as a ThermalRight trademark, are wonderful and make for securing a fan quick and easy.  With installation on the tip of my tongue here, while I never like having to remove a mainboard, the installation of the cooler to the board was without unnecessary hassles.  Weighing as much as it does and being as large as it is, allow it to cool to this level.  With this in mind, you can't argue about the SP-97's secure mounting.

The ALX-800 earned our Editor's Choice based on its performance and how inexpensive it was.  ThermalRight racks up another Editor's Choice Award on the SP-97's brute force cooling and innovation.  Hats off to ThermalRight for producing and exceptional cooler.  Thanks again to Sidewinder Computers for making this review possible.

Pros

  • Unparalleled air cooling performance.

  • Copper construction.

  • Heatpipes baby!

  • Fan clips rock.

  • Can handle 80 or 92 mm fans.

  • Priced at $55.

Cons

  • Priced at $55.

  • May not fit some mainboards.

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