Evercool Heatsink Review, HPD-815ELS CPU and VC-RF VGA coolers Options

[Pyr0]

Reviewed By: Paul ?Pyr0? Mercer
Date: 20/10/2005
Manufacturer: Evercool
RRP HPD-815ELS Sharks Cooler: $35.00 (£20, ?30)
RRP VC-RF VGA Cyclone Cooler: $12.00 (£7, ?10)
Product provided by Evercool (www.Evercool.com)

Introduction:

Evercool is a company established in 1992, they have quickly grown to become one of the top 5 cooling fan manufacturers in Taiwan, employing more than 1200 people. Although they specialize in the CPU cooling equipment, they also produce cooling devices for the rest of the system. Evercool's main products include:

*CPU Coolers
*Water Coolers
*DC Fans
*H.D.D. Coolers
*System Blowers
*Peripherals

Evercool strives to supply customers with the highest quality and cost effective products while using the latest technology and design. Evercool also maintains first class service and support.

We would like to emphasize that we put our entire strengths on the research and improvement of our innovative "PC Thermal Solutions" and ensure you that we do our best to meet the needs of our customers.

Evercool were kind enough to send us not one, but two samples of their latest heatsinks, a Sharks HPD-815 CPU cooler and a VC-RF Cyclone VGA cooler.

The first one we?ll be looking at is the Sharks HPD-815.

HPD-815 Sharks CPU Cooler

Package and Contents:
The packaging on the Sharks HPD-815 is simple but effective, it is encased in a stiff plastic ?clam shell?, much like other heatsinks I have seen. This would not withstand a lot of weight being dropped onto it, but it should be fine during shipping. The Sharks HPD-815 we recieved from Evercool arrived undamaged. On the back of the pack are listed the specifications and features of the heatsink.

Contents:

Included with the heatsink are the following:
* The Sharks cooler
* LGA 775 back plate and fixings
* AMD Athlon 64 clip kit
* Mounting screws
* Thermal paste
* Installation booklet

Specs and Features: 4.25/5

* Material: Copper, with Aluminium heatpipes and fins
* Socket Compatibility: LGA775, K8 Athlon 64 all types and speeds (754, 939 & 940)
* DC Fan Size: 80x80x15mm
* Fan Speed: 2000-3500 RPM
* Noise Level: 18-28dBA
* Air Flow: 23.4-41CFM
* Voltage: 12V DC
* Weight: 459.5 g (approx)

Features:
Two modes of operation ? silent and overclocked
8mm diameter heatpipes provide high thermal conductivity and special welding techniques enable seamless connections between fins and pipes.
Red LED fan for the modders out there
You can decide the direction of airflow simply by turning the fan around

One thing I really have to mention is the base of the heatsink, this has been polished to a mirror finish, for a value heatsink this is absolutely astounding.

Installation: 4.0/5

Before installing the Sharks cooler, a small amount of assembly is required.
The heatsink comes without any clips or brackets attached to the base, this is the only time that you will need your screwdriver.
After removing the fan and the top cover, the retention clip fits in between the two sets of fins and is fastened by two long screws. The clip is very similar to the clips on the boxed Athlon 64 coolers, with a little lever ? very easy to fit/fasten. Screw the top back on, and you?re good to go.

I did not encounter any clearance or fitting problems.

The Setup:
Asus A8N SLI Deluxe
Athlon64 3000+ Winchester
1024MB (2x512MB)GeIL PC4000 Ultra Platinum RAM
Asus GeForce 6600GT
Maxtor 60GB IDE HDD
Windows XP SP2

Testing:
Testing was done initially with the standard boxed cooler, with Cool 'n' Quite disabled the highest stable (12 hours of Prime95) overclock was obtained (2250MHz), and maximum temperatures recorded. The computer was then left to idle for 15 mins, until the temperatures stopped falling, and the minimum levels recorded. Using the same CPU clock speed, the process was then repeated twice with the Evercool Sharks cooler, once in silent mode and once again in overclocked mode.
In silent mode the fan spins at 2000 RPM, when switched to overclock mode the fan spins up to 3500 RPM. Even when the fan was running in overclocked mode, at 3500 RPM it seemed a bit quieter than the boxed AMD heatsink and fan.

These are the results obtained:

Performance: 4.25/5

You can clearly see that the Sharks cooler performs substantially better than the boxed cooler, with a difference of at least 3 degrees in all situations. Even silent mode yeilded a drop in CPU temp. When overclocked the Sharks cooler practically matches the standard cooler at stock speeds, this is no doubt possible because of the thick 8mm diameter heatpipes connected to the copper core in the base.


Price and Warranty: 4.25/5

The Evercool HPD-815 Sharks cooler has an RRP of $35.00, which is very inexpensive when you look at other aftermarket coolers, and in my opinion is quite reasonable considering the performance and the quality. There is also a one year warranty with Evercool products.

Pros:
Two modes of operation ? silent and overclocked
Large diameter heatpipes
Finely polished copper base
Red LED?s in the fan
Performs better than the boxed heatsink

Cons:
The mode switch is located on the top of the heatsink, making it awkward to change when the side of the case is on.

Specs and Features: 4.25/5
Installation: 4.0/5
Performance: 4.25/5
Price: 4.25/5
Overall: 16.75/20

VC-RF VGA Cooler

Moving on to the second cooler sent to us by Evercool, we have the VC-RF.

Packaging:

Again the packaging is minimal, but this can only help to keep the costs to the consumer down. The VC-RF arrived in perfect working order with no damage whatsoever.

Contents:

Opening the package, these are the parts you can expect to find:

Included with the heatsink were:
* The VC-RF Copper Cooler with LED fan
* A fan guard/cover
* 8x small heatsinks for memory chips
* Fixings and screws
* 3 Pin to Molex power adapter
* Tube of Thermal Paste

Specs and features: 4.0/5

* DC Fan Size: 45x45x10 mm
* Bearing Type: Ever Lubricate bearing (Long life bearing)
* Speed: 5000 RPM ± 10%
* Max Air Flow: 7.79 CFM
* Voltage 12V
* Material: Copper
* Weight: 147g

Features:

With the included fixings, the VC-RF is designed to be used with a wide range of graphics cards

Installation: 4.25/5

To test the limits of the cooler, I decided to test it on a GeForce 6600GT.

Again notice the mirror like finish to the base of the heatsink, very impressive

After screwing on the extra ?arms? to the heatsink, and fitting the pushpins, the heatsink is ready to be attached


Carefully remove the stock heatsink, and RAM sinks.


And after applying a small amount of the supplied thermal paste, attach the new VC-RF heatsink



Did I mention that it glows?

The fan has red and blue LED?s. These are not so bright as to be offensive but give off a nice glow.

Testing:
Using the same test system, and with standard clock speeds for the graphics core and memory, I tested the stock heatsink under load and idle, using the built in temperature sensor and the Nvidia driver software to measure the temps.
I then proceeded to overclock the card as far as I could without seeing any tearing or artifacts. Both the minimum and maximum temperatures were recorded for each test. The highest clock speeds I could manage before seeing artifacts on the screen was 550MHz for the core, and 1150MHz for the memory.
The standard heatsink was then swapped for the VC-RF, and the process repeated at the same speeds.

Performance: 4.25/5
The VC-RF performed very well and was quieter than the standard cooler supplied with the card.
With the extra cooling potential available to me, I was able to push the card to 580MHz for the core, and 1166MHz for the memory chips before seeing any graphical corruption. At these speeds, the maximum core temp was only 69°C. This is still way below the maximum temp observed while using the standard cooler.


Price: 4.5/5
The Evercool Cyclone has an RRP of $12, and is absolutely ideal if you need to replace your standard cooler.
Warranty:
Again Evercool offer a one year warranty

Pros:
Very small and compact
Glowing LED?s
Performs better than the standard cooler
Allows slightly higher overclocks
Very low price
Can also be used to replace motherboard heatsinks

Cons:
Ramsinks are aluminium

Specs and Features: 4.0/5
Installation: 4.25/5
Performance: 4.0/5
Price: 4.5/5
Overall: 16.5/20



Although Evercool has succeeded in designing two heatsinks targeted at the value end of the price range, after running these coolers for a couple of days, in my opinion the performance slightly exceeds that.
With some of the latest technologies, and highly polished copper bases, these coolers are very well made. They are ideal for either someone on a budget, or someone simply looking for a low cost alternative to the noisy standard fans supplied with their hardware. For those of you who love to mod your case with lights and neons, these may be a welcome addition to your bling.

We would like to thank Cindy Yo from Evercool for supplying us with these excellent heatsinks.

[nuelrosson]

another swell review mr. Mercer

[David_Heavey]

Pyro ... very

[Aries]

First, congrats to the good review Pyr0.
The HPD-815 Sharks CPU Cooler is very interesting, but unfortunaly (I looked now) I can't get him by any of my sellers. I have to if ti's possibile to get him somewhere in austria.

Aries

[Le_hog]

these two look great, and cost almost nothing. i think i really need something like that to replace my stock cpu hsf, its so noisy and doesnt cool anything...

[redfox21700]

Nice review, pyr0 .

That's not too bad of a result. The temperatures are very nice on overclock mode. Though I don't know that it would work on my CPU. Dual core seems to run hotter than single core, especially vs. a 3000+ venice. Still good results, however.

[Pyr0]

Thanks guys

i was pleasantly surprised at the performance of these heatsinks

@redfox - Winchester

[redfox21700]

Thanks guys

i was pleasantly surprised at the performance of these heatsinks

@redfox - Winchester

[4PLaY]

Great review Pyr0.

One thing I'm very interested in and this is quite important.

VC-RF is what i want

I have DFI LanParty UT 250GB and I wanna use the Evercool VC-RF as a CHIPSET cooler on my motherboard.

Now will it fit??

Coz I used the Vantec CCB-A1C before and it fit like a glove. So far seeing the supported Cards list, most of the Evercool's and the Vantec's supported VGA cards are the same. I just need 1 good confirmation before I go and get one. :)

KUDOS PlanetAMD64

[Pyr0]

hehe, what a coincidence
i'll be attempting to fit that VC-RF to my nf4 chipset in the next few days
without the "arms" screwed on the cooler the holes are approx 5.5cm apart
with the arms, the spacing is more like 8cm

hope that helps

[4PLaY]

Alrighty then, lemme know how it goes ok??

I never tried to measure it. :) I so bad so so bad at those numbers, that the best you can do is to me is tell me if the holes of the 2 heatsinks mentioned above are exactly in the same place, and is it with or without the arms!! :) wahehe so sorry man. :)

Thanks again!

Oh, and one more thing, I'm having quite a difficulty trying to find one online, I also need to know where I could buy these VC-RF babies using a credit card. :)

It's also a little rough since im living in the philippines. :)

could anyone point me to a site (US website preferably) where I could buy them? :)

This post has been edited by 4PLaY: Nov 29 2005, 11:52 AM

[Bile_Hazard]

Nice review, Pyr0

[4PLaY]

Here's one thing that could help you help me...

lemme know the differences between the following VGA cards in terms of how far apart the holes are coz I have a little experience myself.

Geforce 4 Ti200
Geforce 4 MX 400
Geforce 4 Ti4200

Radeon 9600xt - I was able to fit a Thermaltake Crystal Orb
Radeon 9800xt - Also a Crystal Orb

Note that the Crystal Orb will not fit in my motherboard chipset, but the Vantec CCB-A1C Iceberq will.

:)

[Pyr0]

the vc-re (almost exactly the same, just no ramsinks) are sold at jab-tech
http://www.jab-tech.com/product.php?produc...&cat=223&page=1
but there's none in stock at the moment
other people have said that they have been able to order them from AOC (the Alpha and Omega Computer Corporation)
VC-RE
VC-RF

edit:
or try here:
http://www.eagepc.com/store.cfm?do=detail&...&c=4006&p=10625

edit: and i have read that they fit the nf3

it fits the NF3 250Gb perfect....

This post has been edited by Pyr0: Nov 29 2005, 12:11 PM

[4PLaY]

Lifesaver, that's what you are pyro!! wahehe!! :)

[Pyr0]

glad to help m8

This post has been edited by Pyr0: Nov 29 2005, 12:27 PM

[4PLaY]

Oh oh, and one more thing, I almost forgot, what's the difference between the VC-RE and VC-RF???

[hamltnblue]

On the video card HSF the cons show Aluminum ram sinks but the picture looks like copper. Is that a typo?

This post has been edited by hamltnblue: Nov 29 2005, 07:10 PM

[donkballs]

SUPERB REVIEW PYRO nice little vga cooler contact surface looks great 12 dollars is cheap for the attention to detail with this cooler

[Pyr0]

On the video card HSF the cons show Aluminum ram sinks but the picture looks like copper.  Is that a typo?

unfortunately not :(
the little ramsinks are just copper coloured, if scratched you can see that they are aluminium

thanks donkballs
i was pleasantly surprised at the build quality too

i've finally gotten round to installing the evercool vc-rf as a chipset cooler on my dfi board and it works really well, my chipset temps have dropped by roughly 8-9C under load and the fan spins a little slower so it's a bit quieter too




This post has been edited by Pyr0: Dec 5 2005, 10:06 PM

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