Heatsink Construction & Design cont.

Now not everything is average about this cooler, as instead of the more standard 6mm heatpipes Xigmatek has opted for the relatively massive 8mm pipes. These three 8mm pipes can handle a lot higher thermal load than three 6mm heatpipes can and it was very nice to see these high quality all copper monsters.


One thing that sticks out is the fact that Xigmatek did make one rookie mistake with this cooler, and this mistake has to do with the face of the HDT-S1283. Over the past few years manufacturers have proven time and time again that a multifaceted “face” will decrease static pressure and encourage more air to go through, rather than around, the aluminum fins (the face of the cooler is the side of the cooler that the fan is placed against). Unfortunately, Xigmatek did not do this; instead of this tried, tested and true approach Xigmatek just made the face of the cooler concave. Don’t get us wrong, this is an OK way of doing things as more air will want to go to the center of the cooler rather than go around the front. However, it is an outdated approach, and since the back face (or other side of the cooler) has numerous ridges built into it, it is obvious that Xigmatek did this on purpose.


On the positive side, that back face has all those ridges for a good reason; and this reason is to allow the "spoiler" to be attached to the cooler without the need for screws or even tools. To install the spoiler, all you have to do is push it in between two fins but while this sounds like a flimsy way of mounting it, it is a surprisingly secure. If you try to force the issue, this spoiler will laugh at you and not work; but if you take your time and line things up it will slide in as easy as you please.


As mentioned earlier in this review, this particular cooler uses the generic push pin style mounting system. There are many pros and many cons to using this system but in the end the pros all come down to ease of installation and low production costs (as the manufacturer does not need to include a backplate or other expensive metal based materials). The cons on the other hand can be summed up by “durability” and “inconsistency”.

Plastic pushpins are not what you call a great long term installation method when you are dealing with a cooler which is above their maximum specified weights. When Intel engineers designed this system, they specified 550 grams as the nominal maximum weight it would be able to support. Unfortunately, even at 550 grams these little pushpins tend to flex a lot (as any malleable plastic material will) which means that you will get inconsistent mounting pressure on the CPU as time goes on. Even though we say this, you should remember that uneven pressure shouldn’t break your chip or anything drastic like that (far from it in fact) but it does mean that part of the CPU will not have great contact with its CPU cooling solution. This in turn will lead to increased heat as the cooler will be unable to remove the entire thermal load away from the CPU. With lower TDP (Thermal Design Power) chips like our e4600, this should not be an issue as this particular cooler is designed to be ultra efficient, however it will be interesting to see how it fares on the hotter q6600.

On the positive side, these pushpins should make for a very easy installation that shouldn’t require you to remove your motherboard during installation. As with all things in life it is all about trade offs, and we will see after the installation and testing phase if Xigmatek got it right.


Overall this heatsink is very, very good and while it may be outdated in some areas that exposed base should more than make up for any shortcomings. While this tweak seems like a “why didn’t I thing of that!” kind of improvement it is reality an amazing piece of engineering, which should have a major positive impact on cooling performance. It should be noted that while Xigmatek may be one of the first to capitalize on this engineering feat, it was in fact another company called Zaward which came up with it, though only in a 92mm fan size. We don’t want to steal Xigmateks thunder as they were smart enough to have seen a winner before most others, lease that technology and upsize said technology so that a 120mm fan could be mounted. Our hats are off to you Xigmatek as this was one brilliant move.