It has been a while since we have seen a new air cooler arrive at the Planet. Many times there is very little difference between each of them but they each usually have some little change made that the manufacturer hopes will be their big selling point. This is the case with Sunbeamtech’s latest offering. The Core-Contact Freezer(C-CF from here on out) is a big air cooler that has one main difference from other coolers, its heat pipes are in direct contact with the CPU rather than just being in the center of the base. Will this work in Sunbeamtech’s favor or will the C-CF be just like the others?
Product: Sunbeamtech Core-Contact Freezer
Author: Jason Hambly
Reviewed on: August 12, 2008
Product Cost: $34.99
Manufacturer: Sunbeamtech
Spelling and Grammatical editor: PlanetX64 Staff
{mospagebreak title=Package/Specs}
Sunbeamtech ships the C-CF in a box with lots of pictures and information about the product. My box arrived with a corner smashed in, but the product survived intact.
Contents:
-Core-Contact Freezer
-120mm MFDB fan
-Fan mounting clips
-Fan controller
-Intel motherboard mount
-TX-2 Thermal Grease
-Instructions
Specifications:
Dimensions (mm) – 125(L) x 104(W) x 155(H)
Weight – 590g without fan
Bearing Type – MFDB
Air Flow – 90.65 CFM (Max)
Noise – 16~20db +/- 10%
Thermal Resistance – 0.092 (ºC/W)
Fan size – 120mm
Compatible CPUs
AMD – Socket AM2, Socket 754/939/940
Intel – LGA775
The C-CF looks like your standard tower
{mospagebreak title=Installation}
Installation:
Sunbeamtech was very nice to include a full size tube of Tuniq TX-2 thermal grease with this cooler. They also suggested that twice the normal amount of grease be used. This is due to there being small grooves between the base of the cooler and the heat pipes. Hardcore types may be inclined to lap the base to make it smoother and remove these ridges.
Installation on an AMD motherboard required no additional work be done. You just attach the clamp to the standard AMD bracket. However that was easier said than done. With a motherboard already installed in a mid-tower case there is little room to maneuver your hands around the enormous cooler. Getting the first side clipped was easy but the second side required a ridiculous amount of force in a very tight space. In the end I needed to use a screwdriver and my free hand to get the clip attached. I still ended up spilling some blood when the smashed my thumb into the PSU. I contemplated a new reviewing system based on the amount of blood lost during installations but felt some readers may not enjoy the visuals.
Intel users will need to install the included bracket onto the motherboard first. This bracket doesn’t require the motherboard to be removed, it just installs like a standard Intel cooler. However after that you have to go through the same process as the AMD install.
Once the cooler was in place the rest was easy, the fan controller attaches to an open expansion slot in the back while the fan easily attaches to the cooler with two metal clips. I had to reverse the fan and put it on the opposite side of the cooler in my case. On the side it was setup to go on the fan came in contact with my RAM.
{mospagebreak title=Performance}
Test System:
AMD Athlon64 X2 5600+
Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H mATX motherboard
2GB OCX Platinum XTC PC2 6400 RAM
Asus X1950Pro
Sunbeamtech 3DStorm case
Performance:
To test the cooling prowess of the C-CF I ran HyperPi on each core using the 16M option and monitored CPU temps with CoreTemp. Max temps were generally reached within a minute or so but the test was allowed to run for the full duration and the max reached temp for each core was recorded. For comparison I used the stock AMD cooler.
When the fan controller was set to Low, Idle temperatures on the C-CF and the stock cooler were equal but the Load temperatures with the C-CF were 7ºC lower.
Adjusting the fan controller to the Mid setting (This setting is marked on the dial with a notch so you know when you are half way) the C-CF ran 4ºC cooler at idle and 9ºC under full load then the stock cooler.
Bumping the fan controller up to full speed continued to lower the temperatures another couple degrees but not by as much as you may expect at full speed. Noise was not an issue since the fan was very quiet. Idle temps were 6ºC cooler then stock while the load temps ran 10ºC cooler.
Only having a 10ºC delta in temperatures at load compared to the stock cooler I was a bit disappointed in the performance of the C-CF.
{mospagebreak title=Conclusion}
Conclusion:
Overall the Sunbeamtech Core-Contact Freezer falls into the pile of coolers that work well but have some major flaws. The ridiculously hard installation is this coolers biggest downfall. It is so hard to install that damage is a very likely outcome to either your motherboard/CPU or even yourself. Performance was not bad but not the greatest, however at only $35 US it is half the price of some of the better known air coolers (cough* Zalman). I have in the past liked all of the products that Sunbeamtech have sent us but unfortunately this time around I have to give the thumbs down to the Core-Contact Cooler until they make it a little more user friendly.