OCZ Vendetta 2 review
Installation
On the Intel platform, the Vendetta 2 is installed with the same kind of push-pins that are used by Intel's stock cooler. The advantage is that you're not required to remove the motherboard out of your case, but with a cooler this size and weight I'd much rather see a more secure mounting method. Especially if you travel a lot to LANs I wouldn't really feel safe leaving the cooler attached to the motherboard during transport.
Test system
TestingIntel Core 2 Duo E6400 processor Asus Commando motherboard ASUS EN7300GS/HTD 256MB 2GB OCZ DDR2 PC2-9200 Reaper HPC Edition Seagate 320GB HDD Cooler Master Storm Sniper PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 PSU Dell 2407WFP LCD display Operating system: Windows XP SP2
The Vendetta 2 will be compared to the stock Intel HSF that ships with the Core 2 Duo E6400 processor, the Noctua NH-U12F, and the OCZ Vendetta. The thermal compound used during the installation of all these coolers was Arctic Ceramique. Testing will be done by measuring the temperature of the processor in idle and load mode and to see how well the heatsink scales the processor will also be overclocked.
The temperature of the processor is measured with the Intel Thermal Analysis Tool (TAT). To get the idle temperatures I just boot into Windows XP and wait 15 minutes before taking the temperatures. To get the load temperatures I ran Prime 95's Torture test while simulating a workload level of 100% for both cores in the Intel Temperature Analysis Tool. This combination really stresses the processor to a maximum workload and creates lots of heat. Under normal heavy load conditions like games or benchmarks the system will almost never reach such high temperatures but this test gives us a good idea of how well the heatsink can handle extreme temperatures. For the overclocking test I boost the FSB of the E6400 processor from 266MHz to 333MHz, which brings it from 2.13GHz to 2.67GHz.
First the temperatures at standard clockspeed:
The increased surface area and the higher airflow definitely help to keep the temperatures down. The Vendetta 2 scores significantly better than the Vendetta and manages to beat the Noctua NH-U12F as well. Additionally, the Vendetta 2 is also not as noisy as its older brother.
Next are the overclocked results.
Just like in the previous test the Vendetta 2 is the best cooler in our overclocking test. The thermals delivered by this HSF are very good and while the original Vendetta gets pretty noisy during this test the new Vendetta 2 has a much more acceptable noise level.
Conclusion:
The original Vendetta provided a pretty good price/performance ratio but suffered from a too noisy fan. OCZ fixed this problem with the Vendetta 2, the new heatsink delivers pretty silent operation and thanks to its increased surface area it performs a lot better too. The Vendetta 2 is available in retail stores for around $35 (30EUR), at this price point, it's a pretty sweet deal.
The Good Stuff
The Bad Stuff
I give the OCZ Vendetta 2 a 9/10.
Previous Page (1/2)Added: March 10th 2009
Product reviewed: OCZ Vendetta 2
Reviewer: Thomas De Maesschalck
Score: 9/10
Page: 2/2
