Arctic Cooling Copper Lite

Arctic Cooling Copper Lite
Posted :: Jun 2, 2005 by Impact

Installation:
Unfortunately installation of the Copper Lite was more difficult than most other cooling systems. When installing, because there is no spring, both sides of the mounting bracket must be lined up before screwing one side down to the motherboard. Although it is not overly difficult, it did take approximately 10 minutes of fiddling to get the sides to clip on correctly (compared to 3 to 4 minutes with a "normal" heatsink & fan CPU cooler). However, in defense of Arctic Cooling, the Copper Lite is not going to fall off once it's clamped down. The extra security will allow a regular LAN party attendee to tote around his/her computer from home and back with little to worry about.

Testing:
Although a unique looking CPU fan is neat, it's practically worthless if it cannot cool properly.

The Setup:

Athlon XP 2100+ CPU
MSI K7TPro266
WD 160gb 8mb 7200rpm
Antec 350w Powersupply

The first test was a sound test. Most computers have an audible hum coming from the tower. This is normally due to slight vibrations in the CPU cooler, fan noise, hard drive clicking and platter spinning, as well as CD/DVD disc spinning. After testing Arctic Cooling's Copper Lite, Absolute Insight staff can honestly say that they have never heard a quieter CPU fan. The only noise coming out of the case, with the side open, was from the hard drive and power supply. With the hard drive disconnected, the testing staff could barely hear anything besides the quiet hum of the PSU. With the case closed, there was very little to no sound.

Quantitative sound measurements were taken using a RadioShack "Sound-Level-Meter" which measures decibel output through an attached microphone. The microphone was placed about 2" from the fan (remember that sound intensity is a function of distance from the source). Although the tests showed an output between 66-69 dB (this is about the noise level of normal conversation), but the reading was easily skewed by the power supply (which was significantly louder than the CPU fan). To put it in perspective, if someone were to place his/her ear 2" away from the Copper Lite it would only be as loud as normal conversation. The typical computer user sits multiple feet away from his/her computer, and covers it with a case, which makes the sound coming from the Copper Lite itself nearly inaudible in comparison to regular noise from the aforementioned sources (case fan noise, PSU noise, HDD noise, etc.).

Next, the cooling capabilities of the Arctic Cooling's Copper Lite were tested. Absolute Insight took a quantitative approach to testing how well the Copper Lite wicks away heat. All measurements taken using lm_sensors in Linux 2.6.11:

K7 Stock Air-Cooling
Idle: +45.0 C
Load: +56.0 C

Copper Lite
Idle: +40.0 C
Load: +49.0 C

Koolance PC6-201 Water Cooler:
Idle: +39.0 C
Load: +45.0 C

The CPU was loaded by using a simple script that required maximum CPU usage, thereby clocking the CPU to 100% usage. The load test was run for about 20 minutes, at which time the temperature stopped fluctuating.

The data shows that the Copper Lite has a cooling capability that is comparable to the water-cooling system. It also runs a bit quieter, and is considerably cheaper as well ($19 for the Copper Lite compared to $100 to $150 for a Koolance Water Cooler). Arctic Cooling's Copper Lite provides great, quiet cooling at a good price. Compared to a normal "stock" CPU cooler, the Copper Lite is around 4 to 5oC cooler during idle, and 6 to 7oC cooler under load. Arctic Cooling has managed to create a considerable performance gain while keeping quiet!