Prolimatech Super Mega Video Review

 Prolimatech Super Mega Video Review  

Introduction

You know those times when you’re maybe with your significant other having an ‘adult moment’ shall we say? Now as awesome as it is when said moments completely lose track of time and you wonder where the night or day has gone, they can be just as rewarding if not more exciting when on the spur of the moment you find yourself ‘enjoying each others company’ in a lunch break or before Mum and Dad / the kids return (depending on your position, come on this is a family site that’s not readers stories in a top shelf mag!).

Way off topic I know, but the point I’m trying to make is a review does not have to be 20 pages long to get the details across that you’re interested in knowing, and we need to inform you of. So in a bold (read lazy) move we have moved our heat sink testing on to a video based format at OC3D.tv. You will still find the videos here with an introduction and a good size graph for temperature comparison, and of course any awards where required.

The Prolimatech Super Mega is the first heat-sink we have chosen to test in the new format, a heat-sink they have some big claims for:

Following the huge success of Megahalems comes the super edition, the SUPER MEGA!!It’s a hybrid of copper and aluminum for an unmatched level of performance while still keeping it under one kilogram. We have also included an option to install extra pounds of pressure for an even tighter contact between the heat sink base and the CPU.

Ignoring the Americanisation of Aluminium for a moment, SUPER MEGA sounds like something from a Saturday morning kids tv show. But the Megahalem was quite a stonker, so maybe it’s just the choice of name that’s bad?

Test Setup

Gigabyte UD3R V2
Intel i7 950
Mushkin Radioactive 2000MHz
Cooler Master 690 II Advanced White Eddition
Mushkin 650W PSU

Testing

For the first test we set our i7-950 overclocked to 200×20 @ 1.25v for a clock speed of 4.0GHz. We allow the system to idle for 10 minutes and then run Prime95 ‘maximum heat maximum stress’ setting for a further 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes we note the temperatures of all cores and the ambient temperature of the room. An average of all cores is taken, then the ambient temperature is removed from this figure and this gives us the delta temperature. Delta is the temperature difference above ambient which is a truer reflection of the heat-sink performance rather than mere maximum figures. Testing in an Igloo or the Sahara would give vastly different maximum temperatures, yet the Delta could be the same.

The second test follows all steps from above but with a 200×21 @ 1.35v for 4.2GHz overclock, the extra voltage in this test allows us to see if the heat-sink can cope when extreme loads and overclocks are applied.

Video Review


Conclusion

The Prolimatech is a very well made and good looking cooler. It has a beefy look and very high standard of build quality as we’d expect from Prolimatech.

It has to be said that one would expect all those qualities for a heat-sink that retails around the £58 mark in the UK, but the sting comes when you realise that you still need to find the money to buy fans as well. With Delta temperatures of 49c and 60c in our two tests the heat-sink is definitely able to dissipate the heat created by our overclock when under stress, but we need to remember the two fans were at 12v and far from quiet during testing.

The advice is clear. If for whatever reason you do not or can not buy one of the big two twin-tower coolers then the Super Mega should be high on your list of possibilities. Just remember to factor in the extra cost of fans and be willing to run those fans at a high speed if you are looking for large overclocks (1.25v+ on a 1366). If cost and noise are not a worry for you then this is one of the best single tower coolers available on the market.

Our closing thoughts are that for a heat sink that does not come with any bundled fans, and performs worse than the the Silver Arrow and NH-D14 which both comes with a pair of fans for around the same price, that the Super Mega is just too expensive for our tastes.

Thanks to Case King for the sample on test today, you can discuss the results in our forums.