Before we can mount the cooler, this time we actually have to read the instructions that come with the cooler. This is because the cooler has to be a certain way up for it to be able to work properly. As part of the bubble pump relies on gravity, if it is upside down, it won’t really work at all. The cooler can be mounted in a horizontal case, but it is not recommended; as performance won’t be optimal.

Akasa have come up with a great way to keep the cooler installation simple while allowing the cooler to still be multi-socket compatible. The cooler has plastic mounting frames that are attached to the motherboard and then the actual cooler is clipped onto the mount with some industrial grade spring clips.

Having nothing to do but push in the four Intel reference clips (with no cooler to get in the way) made this the simplest of tasks.

Thermal paste is applied, the cooler lowered into the assembly and the ‘springs’ clipped into place. This took no time at all, and I actually took longer stopping to take the pictures! Note the correct orientation of the cooler, with the pipe in front of the fan being the lowest part on the cooler (as this case is really stood up).

Testing and Results
The cooler was measured at idle and at load, the idle temperatures were taken after the computer had sat at the desktop doing nothing for 30 minutes, and the load temperatures were taken while running ORTHOS for 30 minutes. Temperatures were recorded using speedfan (CoreTemp doesn’t work on Pentium D’s)

The results were then calculated as the difference (delta) between the ambient temperature and the idle/load temperature to erase differences in room temperature affecting the results.

Test rig

Results

The Akasa Revo gives somewhat mediocre performance and places just behind Akasa’s 965. Let’s dissect what these results mean, and their implications…

Next Page – Conclusion

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