Introduction

For the prospective heatsink/fan buyer, there are many choices nowadays. Almost all of them are claimed by their respective companies as providing superior cooling, but for some consumers, that is not enough. A good heatsink should combine performance with a relatively quiet noise level, ease-of-installation, and perhaps (lastly), good looks if one has a window in their case. A company that was new to me, Aerocool, had just begun to produce some nifty-looking heatsinks and when Olivier of Lux Design asked me if I wanted to review one, I could not pass up the chance. Today I'll be looking at the Aerocool X-Factor heatsink. It certainly looks good, with its aluminum-framed fan, but does it meet the mark in other more crucial areas, or fall short?

Specifications

The X-Factor is based on an extruded-fin design, with fins radiating outward from a center that encompasses a copper core, a design that has been featured on other heatsinks before. The heatsink is about regular size in terms of its footprint, but isn't tall, being only 28mm in height. This comes into effect later on as the implementation of the clip design further shortens the fins' effective height. The fan utilized is a 70mm square by 15mm thick unit. While the frame of it is made out of aluminum, the blades are still plastic and have merely had a metal finish applied to them. It flows a respectable 32cfm. For those of you wanting better performance, Aerocool sells a version of this heatsink with a larger 70mm square by 25mm thick fan that flows 44cfm, but, as you can expect, is much louder. This fan is not aluminum-framed.

Heatsink Specs

• Dimensions: 70x70x28mm
• Material: Aluminum w/copper insert
• CPU compatibility - Intel: Coppermine all, Celeron all AMD: Duron all, Athlon (TB) all, Athlon XP 2600+

Fan Specs

• Dimensions: 70x70x15mm
• Bearing: 1 ball 1 sleeve
• RPM: 4000rpm
• Air Flow: 32.45cfm
• Noise Level: <30dba
• Total weight of HSF: 370g

In addition to the heatsink, you also get a small package of thermal paste. The heatsink ships with the fan pre-installed, screwed down the heatsink with rubber washers in between. For complete specs, visit this page at Aerocool's site.

This heatsink isn't heavy in comparison to other units, which an weigh near a pound without the fan. This is apparent when you pick up the box it's in. The thermal paste included is nothing to write home about, but it's better than putting a thermal pad on the bottom of the heatsink that you'll just end up having to carefully scrap off. The packaging of the heatsink is also not too protective, it seems, but the core of the heatsink is protected by a plastic sticker, ensuring that the contact surface is not scratched in any way during shipping. No instructions were provided, and while I doubt that many buying an aftermarket heatsink would need them, it would have been nice, nonetheless, to see them included.

Boxed.

Thermal paste is included, and thankfully, a thermal pad is not.

Nice look...

The fan has a standard 3-pin connector and draws power from a mobo header. It supports RPM monitoring, and MBM reported a reading of ~4300rpm from my Asus A7V133. This is normal as the fan is rated at 4000rpm. The fan is secured to the heatsink by four screws, and rubber washers separate the fan's frame from the heatsink. This will reduce the transmission of the fan's vibrations to the heatsink and subsequently, the rest of the case, reducing the noise. However, because the screws directly contact both the fan and the heatsink, they will transmit some vibrations. I found this fan to be slightly louder than a Panaflo 80mm 'H1A' unit, but not by much. It doesn't produce any high-pitched whines that I'm so disgusted by.

Top view - the fan blades only look metallic.

The presence of the clip reducing fin size.

Washers provide spacing between the fan and heatsink.

The top-down view highlights the relatively small footprint of this heatsink; you shouldn't have much trouble fitting this on your motherboard. In the next picture we see that there is a slot where the fins are cut down to allow for the clip to pass through. This reduces the fins' height quite a bit, reducing the overall surface area of the heatsink, which isn't a good thing. The reason for this is that the fins go in directions which aren't parallel to the direction of the clip. We'll see if this is detrimental to performance or not.

Clip design is secure.

Fins extend from the "X" of the heatsink.

Copper base is fairly flat.

The clip, thankfully, attaches to all six lugs on the socket for a secure fit. While the weight of the heatsink and fan doesn't necessitate the use of such a clip, the security of such a design is still a benefit. Looking at the bottom of the heatsink, we see where the X-Factor gets its name from: The solid aluminum cross from which the fins extend from at about a 90-degree angle. The design in which the fins extend from the centre of the heatsink has proven very effective in previous heatsinks I've tested, as it's of little use to have fins in the centre of the heatsink, where most fans have a deadspot. The copper base where the heatsink contacts the CPU was very flat IMO, and this finish was protected by the sticker applied to the heatsink for shipping/packaging.

 

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