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While I've used a 3000+ for testing for the longest time, I figured it was time to step up. For this review, I worked through a friend to get a nice clocker of a CPU - a week 515 3200+ Venice. For those of you out there in the know about Athlon 64 overclocking, you'll know about the potential these chips have. Potential for high clocks and heavy heat loads that is. So heavy in fact, that on mere air cooling, we can't pass 2.7GHz as of yet. This chip will become the foundation of our new heat sink, water block and motherboard overclocking test machine, as its harsh demands will be able to show off just how far this hardware can go. For our testing, we've also elected to fly in a new motherboard - a DFI SLI-D to be exact, in order to help out with overclocking some very nice memory as well as the CPU itself. For all intents and purposes, we now use the OCCT software for all AMD testing, as it allows us to monitor how temperatures change in the system over the thirty minute period. It also provides a nice indicator of what the heatsink is really capable of. Thermal testing is done on three tiers - Stock Clocks, "Common" Overclock (which pushes up about 100W of heat), and Maximum clock, in which the heatsink is given free range to see how far it can go, a feat which can push up near to 130W of heat.
Stock Tests Vapochill Micro ULN  Sonic Tower Passive  Sonic Tower Fan  RX-K8 Silent Boost  BT  Blue Orb II Well then, we're not sure what to say. To be fully honest, we had expected the Blue Orb II to fall behind the others, due to the lack of the heat pipes, and all aluminum design - damn we were wrong. Not only was installation (relatively) easy, but at these stock temperatures, that monster destroyed the competition. Unfortunately though, the RX-K8 took up its place in the back of the pack as expected. With temperatures like that (56 Degrees, loaded) it's no surprise that this was its exit. Common Tests Sonic Tower Fan  BT  Blue Orb Once the burners kicked in though, all of the smaller heatsinks pretty much burned off, leaving but three massive monstrosities in their wake. Previously ousted, the Big Typhoon returns to claim a lead with a vengeance, hammering down hard with an eight degree lead over the others. Redline Tests Sonic Tower  BT  Blue Orb II By this point, it might be worth strapping down the kamikaze goggles extra tight, as the Big Typhoon barely feels an increase in temperatures. As to the other sinks? They begin sweating bullets, as that lead expands to eleven degrees, essentially competing with conventional watercooling. While we'd normally advocate either of the alternate solutions here, this shows one thing - that you'll have good results from any one of these three low noise solutions, so just pick the one that suits your case best. Contents: 
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