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ThermalTake SpinQ Heatsink Review
Author: Dennis Garcia
Published: Friday, January 30, 2009
Conclusion
The ThermalTake SpinQ is a very innovative heatsink with a unique design that resembles a thousand throwing stars. While we cannot condone using the SpinQ as a weapon (or will be responsible if you did) it does an excellent job at delivering cooling performance in a compact design. This is due in part to the 6 heatpipe design but proper airflow does play a key factor in heatpipe efficiently. Squirrel cage blowers tend to work great for this and the variable speed motor helps to control noise. However at 28dBA you’ll be hard pressed to justify turning the fan down.
360 degree cooling does have its benefits, for the motherboard you will get some airflow around the PWM coolers which has always been a problem when switching to custom coolers, and given that heated air is always expelled away from the heatsink the chances of having cooler intake air is greatly increased.
In terms of cooling performance our C/W tests show the SpinQ at having plenty of capacity for overclocking but started to show some limitations given the 61C load temperature.
360 degree cooling does have its benefits, for the motherboard you will get some airflow around the PWM coolers which has always been a problem when switching to custom coolers, and given that heated air is always expelled away from the heatsink the chances of having cooler intake air is greatly increased.
In terms of cooling performance our C/W tests show the SpinQ at having plenty of capacity for overclocking but started to show some limitations given the 61C load temperature.
For a little added flair the SpinQ also comes with a few blue LEDs to light things up.
Now for the ever popular list of Good things and Bad things.
Now for the ever popular list of Good things and Bad things.
Good Things
360 Degree cooling
6 Heatpipe design
Squirrel cage blower fan
50 serrated radiator fins
Innovative heatsink design
OEM style mounting system
6 Heatpipe design
Squirrel cage blower fan
50 serrated radiator fins
Innovative heatsink design
OEM style mounting system
Bad Things
Variable speed control on short wire
Only 3pin fan motor tail
Only 3pin fan motor tail
Ninjalane Rating
We would like to thank Thermaltake for helping to make this review possible
