Swiftech Polaris 120 Review

[SubZero.it]

Swiftech not only offers you great results, an attractive cooler, and a more attractive price, they do it in the least amount of room as needed to get the job done. This leaves plenty of room for memory heat spreaders, and larger chipset cooling around where you are going to house your Polaris 120 after reading this review. For those who really don't mind the noise, I can only imagine what a Delta or Kaze fan could produce on this cooler! These reasons are why I gave Swiftech the Editor's Choice Award.

Link To Review

[PatRaceTin]

wow not only water

[mattkosem]

wow not only water

Swiftech used to make lots of air cooling equipment back in the day. Check out their designs for the older socket A & socket 423 chips. It's just been a while. Looks like this thing's got an airplane strapped to it though :-/ Look at those noise levels!

--Matt

[DeadlyFire]

Inexpensive for its performance Matches a Noctua in performance for much less, though I couldn't help but notice its idle speed sound level was equal to a Noctua CH14 at load and at load itself it was one of the loudest

[stangracin3]

pick 2
low noise, cheap, or performance
low noise + performance = expensive
low noise + cheap = stock cooler
cheap + performance = POS or loud

[Manicdan]

change the last formula to:
cheap + performance = loud

basically pick 2 and it will = the opposite of the third

[stangracin3]

is that ok?

[Manicdan]

i dont see how if something has performance it can be called a POS?

[oldhag]

http://www.mega-labs.com/polaris120_page_3.html
Looks like a good one

[[XC] Synthetickiller]

Impressive temps (seems to lead overall or at least tie for top place). 50 decibles is way too loud for the average joe. If you have deltas, then who cares, but for most people, YIKES!

[DarthShader]

2500RPM fan?

Test all heatsinks with one chosen model of fan please.

[prava]

What a joke of bencharmk. Noctua C-14 3ºC better than Archon?
Also, megahalems and venoumous better than Archon.

You've gotta be kidding me, I just hope skinnee/vapor test it so we have reliable data.

[cobra_kai]

Wow, didn't even know swiftech was into aircooling. Thought they just did water.

[sam3]

Another review:

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/395...ew/index1.html

[crash5s]

Wow, didn't even know swiftech was into aircooling. Thought they just did water.

I bought a chipset cooler from them and CPU cooler back in the socket 478 days for a second build, was pretty good. The chipset HSF was amazing, the CPU one held up with the best but was beaten by a thermalright, though choice of fans made it better IMHO as it cooled the board better.

Water is their bread and butter no doubt, but they've done this before.

[gabe]

Hi Guys,

The high-power fan was absolutely intentional. We felt that with the PWM, the fan would be at low speed most of the time (in the real world, not in benchmarks).

We've had 3 reviews so far, and 3 awards. Tweaktown, Editor's Choice, Overclockers Online, Editor's Choice, and Mega-Labs, Performance Award. I've also had some heads-up from two more leading web sites who reviewed the product with excellent feed-back.

The only thing I notice in all 3 reviews so far, is that they really do not get into the PWM, just mentionning it with a few words.

I was wondering why our competitors do not take much advantage of the PWM function, releasing coolers with either very weak fans for silence, or strong fans for performance. I'm starting to think that nobody uses the PWM function, or understands it?

It's weird, because in the liquid cooling section, the guys really dig the PWM function in our MCP35X pump.

Any of you air cooling guys care to comment about this ?

[CedricFP]

I've noticed that as well. I like the PWM function as it affords a lot more flexibility over the standard "plug and play at one speed" heatsinks. Reviewers should be taking advantage and using Speedfan or something to set thresholds.

[gabe]

I've noticed that as well. I like the PWM function as it affords a lot more flexibility over the standard "plug and play at one speed" heatsinks. Reviewers should be taking advantage and using Speedfan or something to set thresholds.

Thanks for the feed-back !

[STEvil]

Hi Guys,

The high-power fan was absolutely intentional. We felt that with the PWM, the fan would be at low speed most of the time (in the real world, not in benchmarks).

We've had 3 reviews so far, and 3 awards. Tweaktown, Editor's Choice, Overclockers Online, Editor's Choice, and Mega-Labs, Performance Award. I've also had some heads-up from two more leading web sites who reviewed the product with excellent feed-back.

The only thing I notice in all 3 reviews so far, is that they really do not get into the PWM, just mentionning it with a few words.

I was wondering why our competitors do not take much advantage of the PWM function, releasing coolers with either very weak fans for silence, or strong fans for performance. I'm starting to think that nobody uses the PWM function, or understands it?

It's weird, because in the liquid cooling section, the guys really dig the PWM function in our MCP35X pump.

Any of you air cooling guys care to comment about this ?

probably because the motherboard (most) can control the fan rpm with even a standard 3 pin fan, pwm isnt really special.

[gabe]

probably because the motherboard (most) can control the fan rpm with even a standard 3 pin fan, pwm isnt really special.

It is special in the sense that it is controlled as a function of the CPU temp. As temp rises, so does the fan speed, and vice-versa. you can set different thresholds, etc..

in a normal environment, CPU temps don't go up much, since few apps place prolonged load on it (other than benchmarks). Even in most games, load is on GPU.

So most of the time, the fan runs at few hundred rpms, quasi silent.

+1 for looks like only few ppl actually know how to use it ?

[dasa]

silence fanatics dont realy like pwm fans due to them making a bit of a pulsing sound vs a low rpm\undervolted fan
but for a value\performance option they can work rather well
it will be interesting to see what price this may retail for in au im guessing it will be after a spot between then cm 212+ at $33 and 140mm hsf at ~$100

[STEvil]

It is special in the sense that it is controlled as a function of the CPU temp. As temp rises, so does the fan speed, and vice-versa. you can set different thresholds, etc..

in a normal environment, CPU temps don't go up much, since few apps place prolonged load on it (other than benchmarks). Even in most games, load is on GPU.

So most of the time, the fan runs at few hundred rpms, quasi silent.

+1 for looks like only few ppl actually know how to use it ?

motherboard can control based on cpu temp and is adjustable as well, pwm is not adjustable.

Might try putting a cap on pwm circuit to quiet the noise down..

[jmke]

silence fanatics dont realy like pwm fans due to them making a bit of a pulsing sound vs a low rpm\undervolted fan

correct! The best silent fans are not PWM fans, while the best performance fans are not PWM fans either; PWM sit in the middle and should be good for "average performance at acceptable noise levels".

in none of the reviews linked in this thread they test the heatsinks with the same fan, so you can't really measure the heatsink performance, only out of the box performance. Good for those people who hardly read XS

[STEvil]

hope gabe reads this.

[SubZero.it]

Another review:

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/395...ew/index1.html

It's the review already posted lol
though I think ta the perfromance are so good because of the fact the direct touch heatpipes are relly close each other leaving no spare space