A properly cooled CPU is one of the most important requirements for a stable system and when it comes to overclocking, reducing heat is a requirement to see a very good overclock for the most part. That said, both Intel's and AMD's latest do overclock well on stock heatsinks but it isn't something you'd want to run in the long term. There's a lot of cooling solutions that work but those also come at a cost. Today we'll be looking at one in the middle, Thermaltake's ISGC-100.

At first glance the ISGC-100 bears a little resemblance AMD's higher-end stock heatsinks, however, unlike AMD's this one has three heatpipes as opposed to AMD's two and again that's only on their high-end CPU. The base is also quite wide it was a little tricky in one position to get the heatsink to fill the motherboard properly.

Other features Thermaltake lists is the ISGC fan technology, this features a slim 92mm fan designed for less air turbulence and friction as well as silent operation. Even with our case off we could barely hear it at all. This is improved by their hydro dynamic bearing tech on the fan with improved stability and noise production and durability. Another feature Thermaltake touts is their sawtooth fin design to enhance air ventilation in the cooler.

For installation on the AMD2 socket it requires no extra tools you simply slide in the latch and hook it down to the motherboard. This installs quite easily but we had some difficulty taking it off as there's no good place to apply pressure with a flathead to remove the clip. We think that going with a detachable clip which perhaps screws in or just adding a more secure area to remove the heatsink with a screwdriver would bet the best.

Here are the technical specs from Thermaltake.

Model CLP0537
Compatibility Intel Socket LGA1156
Core i7
Core i5
Core i3

Intel Socket LGA 775
Core 2 Quad
Core 2 Duo
Pentium D
Pentium 4
Pentium
Celeron D
Celeron

AMD Socket AM3 /AM2 / AM2+
Phenom II x4
Phenom II x3
Phenom
Athlon 64 FX
Athlon 64 X2
Athlon 64
Sempron
Dimension 124(L) x 96(W) x 70(H) mm
Heatsink Material Aluminum Fins
Al Extrusion Cover + Cu Base
Heatpipe Ø 6 mm x 3PCS
Fan Dimension Ø 92 x 25 mm
Rated Voltage 12 V
Rated Current 0.08 A
Started Voltage 7 V
Fan Speed 600 ~ 1600 RPM (PWM)
Max. Air Flow 37 CFM
Max. Air Pressure 1.22 mmH2O
Noise 17 dBA
Life Expectation 50,000 hrs
Connector 4 Pin
Weight 335g

Our test system was Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 32-bit with ATI Catalyst 9.7 drivers.

We tested in a number of ways to get results, the first thing we did and probably most enthusiasts are interested in is going for the highest overclock possible. We also tested for the highest stable voltage where we could enter Windows and not get a blue screen error. Temperatures of course were taken with AMD Overdrive with idle sitting 5 minutes into the Vista desktop and load the peak temperature after a run of Cinebench 10.

When thinking of buying a new heatsink the first thing that comes to mind isn't usually a new one for your video card but rather your processor. But of course there are quite a number of people who look for the performance edge wherever they can get it and an add on VGA cooler can be quite helpful in that respect. Today we have one to look at from Arctic Cooling, the Accelero S1 Revision 2 cooler with Turbo Module fans.

Here are the specs.

Heat Sink: 138(L) x 215(W) x 33(H) mm
Heat pipe: 6 mm x 4
Weight: 268 g
Accessories: 2 Voltage Regulator Heat Spreaders
8 Memory Heat Sinks
Warranty: 6 Years

Application:
ATI:
Radeon HD 38xx series, 36xx series, 2600, 2400, X1950, X1900, X1800, X1650, X1600, X1550, X1300 series
nVIDIA:
GeForce 9600 GT, 8800GTS(G92), 8800GT, 8600, 8500, 8400, 7950GT, 7900, 7800, 7600, 7300, 6800, 6600 series (except 7X00 GS AGP)

The card comes packaged in a rectangular box which is just the right size for a card this large, meaning not unnecessarily big. Rectangular in shape it features Call of Juarez on the box although we didn't see it in our bundle. Inside the card is packed nicely in Styrofoam with a fairly typical hardware bundle. DVI-to-VGA adapter, DVI-to-HDMI adapter, molex to PCI-Express power adapter, HDTV cable, and S-video cable. No extra software bundle is included. Arctic Cooing also included their Turbo Module coolers as well which fit easily into the Accelero. Here are the specs on the fan.

• Dual High Performance Fans
• Enhance Cooling Performance
• Extremely Quiet
• High Reliability
• Easy Installation
• Low Weight
• Long Lifetime
• 6 Years Warranty

Installation takes a little time and patience but isn't extraordinarily hard. With our GeForce 9600 GT video card we began by removing all the screws on the back of the card. That is quite simple to do and afterwards the stock heatsink comes off quite easily. You'll then want to remove the backs of all the memory heatsink so they can affix themselves to the memory modules on the graphics cards. After that,  remove the sticky tag on the main GPU heatsink and put the spacers on the holes to screw into. There are both "A" and "B" holes depending on the graphics card you are using. Lining up these four holes with the GPU is a little bit tricky but once you have it lined up you can start screwing in the screws. If all you want is a passive heatsink at this point you are done.

We went further though and installed the Turbo Module coolers. This is a little bit harder and you'll need to use a flat head screwdriver to push open the aluminum fins to stick the fans into so it clips into the fan and remains steady. You'll hide the power cord in there as well so it doesn't get in the way of the fans. After this attached the power cord on the fans to one matching on your motherboard and you're ready to go.

Let's move onto testing.

Here is our current test system.

Our test OS was Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 with Nvidia's 175.12 of Forceware drivers and ATI Catalyst 8.4.

We'll start things off with the idle temperatures as measured from GPUZ. Degrees are measured in Celsius.

12 degrees Celsius is quite a drop and shows great potential for the Accelero S1 Rev 2. How much will this correspond to in overclocking though? We used 3DMark 2006 to test stability and RiverTuner to push the cards clock speed.

Here we see a gain of 35MHz over the stock cooler with the GPU speed and less with the memory at 10MHz. Not bad at all though on what already was a good cooler for the GeForce 9600 GT. Here is the GPUZ screen.

Cooler Master have been around in the PC industry for quite some time producing fans, cases, and power supplies that often show up in OEMs and retailers. More often than not we're a fan of their cases and PSUs but today we'll be looking at one of their heatsink/fan combinations the Coolermaster Hyper TX 2.

The Hyper TX 2 sits towards the lower-end of the coolers coming up at $25 around Newegg. While this is more expensive than a stock cooler it's about $20-35 away from the higher-end coolers. The packaging on the cooler is very minimal with the heatsink covered in plastic with some instructions and accessories included with it.

The Hyper TX 2 is ready to go out of the box for Socket 775 systems featuring clip brackets and if you need it for a Socket AM2/AM2+ system it the clip fits in between the heatsink and is easy to install after removing the 775 clips. As with stock Intel heatsinks it comes with thermal grease already on the heatsink.

A fan is mounted on the outside of the cooler bringing it to a size of 108.3 x 123.7 x 136.5 and moves at 1800RPM and is rated for 22dBA. Fan life expectancy 40,000 hours with a 3-pin connector and is mounted onto a plastic shield covering the top and back of the heatsink. The heatsink is one made of aluminum fins and has a copper base with three heatpipes. Installation was a breeze on both a Socket 775 motherboard and also Socket AM2/AM2+.

Here's our current test system.

Our operating system was Windows Vista. For idle test we let the desktop idle for 5 minutes after start up and measured the CPU and for the max we ran Cinebench 10 on loop.

As we can see the Cooler Master does better than the stock cooler but as expected no where near as good as the higher-end coolers. This is going to make pricing crucially important in regards to this heatsink.