NoFan CR-80EH Passive Heat Sink Review
Performance and Testing
The CR-80EH isn’t designed to be used as an overclocking cooler and so to test it in the usual way would be cruel, unkind and most likely short lived. So in order to examine the thermal characteristics of the CR-80EH we’ve designed a set of tests that will best demonstrate its capabilities in a real world environment. In addition, and to act as a basis for comparison we’ve paired the same set up with the small Scythe Katana4 CPU cooler and placed the set up in our usual Storm Trooper test rig, and also with the passive cooling provided by the FC9 case we reviewed a while back. We will not be using a GPU with these tests as we will be using the on board Graphics capabilities of the AMD A8-5600. As with all our tests we use OCCT to measure with a 30 minute test period between a 5 minute run in and a 10 minute cool down. Max temps are recorded along with the ambient temperature enabling us to determine the Delta temperature. As always anything exceeding a max temp of 80 degrees will stop the test and register as a fail.
Test 1: A measure of the temps with the system at idle. A few browser windows open but nothing really going on that will stress the system.
Test 2: Playback of a full screen HD Video using the On board graphics of the A8-5600. As it’s quite likely that the CR-80EH is going to be used in the sort of dorm room or HTPC set up where low noise is important we figured an HD video would be the sort of task it should expect as its bread and butter and as such it should be expected to be able to cope with the heat created.
Test 3: OCCT stress test. No overclock, just a straight stress test with everything at stock. A bit unfair on the CR-80 perhaps as it’s not really intended to be able to cope with the sort of temps that stress testing develops, but hey, we’re OC3D, so we’re going to do it anyways!
As we can see from the results below the CR-80EH made a fair fist of things, passing all but the stress test in a passive case (No surprise there). Stress test results aside, we were rather impressed with the cooler’s ability to keep the temps tamed during HD video playback. In passive mode the CR-80EH was able to hold the temp below 44 degrees, with this figure improving once a few case fans were added, bringing it down to just over 38 degrees. These results vary from those achieved when we tested the bigger version indicating that either the 80EH is less reliant on through case airflow or that perhaps the through case flow was slightly higher with this testing. Either way what needs to be taken away is that having at least some through case flow will improve results and that as we always say, mileage will vary. While on the subject of through case flow it’s essential that we consider the effects that a total lack of airflow will have on the other hardware in your case Especially Mosfets, exposed VRMs and perhaps the NorthBridge area, as lack of cooling to these components will see them getting seriously hot.
