Evercool Transformer 4 Heatsink Review

I don’t know if anyone else here watches “Ace of Cakes”.  It seems like every single one they make is bigger than the last.  I’m always sure that they’re going to topple over and cover an entire block with icing.  He makes the coolest looking stuff, and his motto is; “Make it bigger, make it badder, make it awesome.”  I’m starting to think that EverCool took this lesson to heart when they started designing the Transformer series of heatsinks.  When I reviewed the Transformer 6 last year, I had my doubts as to whether this thing’s weight would snap my motherboard like a twig.  It was absolutely enormous.

Now as I get ready to check out the Transformer 4, and am truly frightened by what could happen when this thing is finally mounted.  The total weight of this heatsink is 843.5 grams, or 1.85 pounds.  That’s a lot of gear to be hanging off of a fragile printed circuit board.  If it were mounted vertically, such as in an HTPC, then I would say the weight wouldn’t be an issue.  But nearly two pounds hanging perpendicular?  This, I will have to see to trust.  Which I guess is why I’m doing this kind of work, isn’t it?

Here’s a little info on the Transformer 4 before we get started:

Features and Specs

4 heatpipes in 8Φ collocate with large aluminum fins to make effective cooling. All in one design for application to Intel LGA 1366 & LGA 775 and AMD K8 & AM2 series motherboard. According to the needs, users can assemble one or two 12CM fans by themselves to achieve quiet and cooling function. (two silver fans were included) Brightly silver and solid appearance. Users do not need to use tools for easy installation. Overall Dimension 130 x 122 x 160 x mm DC Fan Size 120 x 120 x 25 mm Heat Sink Material Aluminum Fin+Heat Pipe Bearing Type Ever Lubricate Bearing (Long Life bearing) Rated Speed 1000 ±10% RPM Noise Level <21 dBA Rated Voltage 12V Weight 843.5 g Intel : • Pentium 4 Socket T 505~571/620~672 • Pentium D Socket T 805~840/915~960 • Pentium 4 Processor Extreme Edition Socket T 3.73G • Core 2 Duo Processor Socket T E4300~E8600 • Core 2 Extreme Processor Socket T QX6700~QX9650 • Core 2 Quad Processor Socket Q6600~Q9550 • Core i7 Processor I7-920~940 • Core i7 Processor Extreme Edition I7-965~975 • Core i5 Processor 750 AMD: • Athlon Phenom~9600/Phenom X3~8750/Phenom X4~9950 • AthlonPhenom II X2~550/ X3~720/ X4~965 • Athlon 64 X2~3600+ /~6400+(AM2) • Athlon 64 FX-51/53/55/57/60/62 • Opteron ~154 / ~256 / ~890 • Dual-Core Opteron ~180 / ~290 / ~890 • Second-Generation  Opteron™ ~1222 SE/1222 • Third-Generation  Opteron™ ~1356 • Sempron ~3800+

On the next page we take a look inside…

That’s a pretty nice compatibility list.  Not many machines out there that this wouldn’t fit.  I am going to be testing this out on an AMD Athlon 64 X2 processor.  Now, out of the box, which is really that damned plastic clam shell crap I hate, we get the heatsink itself.  If we cut along the edge of the packaging and lay the heatsink face down, we can open the back and remove everything without much difficulty.

Holding the heatsink itself in my hands, I can see the craftsmanship that EverCool puts into their  products.  Standing at around six inches tall on my desk, the two 120mm fans on either side hide all but the copper heat pipes that curve around the bottom through the base.  The fins are nothing special, a stack of aluminum layers that are meant to dissipate heat from the heat pipes as well as from themselves.  Maybe the addition of two huge fans and the sheer dimensions of the ‘sink itself are enough to take care of the heat.  Maybe it’s going to be the heat pipes.  All I know is that they certainly didn’t put as much effort into being unique as they did with the T-6.

A look at the fan and the large contact plate

Also in the packaging is the small box that contains the installation kit.  An assortment of thumb screws, back plates, washers, and bit screws make up this collection.  Nothing to go into details about, but the all-in-one backplates are fairly cool.  My concern is going to be whether I have enough room behind my motherboard after this is installed.  They are a little thick.

All the included mounting hardware for AMD and Intel platforms

Installation wasn’t too bad, the back plates are very handy and didn’t take up nearly as much room as I thought they would.  The installation kit also included some EverCool thermal compound, so I applied a layer of this for good measure.  I have my own, but in all fairness, if I want to give a complete judgement I need to use as much of what the heatsink came with as possible.  And using a separate thermal compound could give temperatures that could be different had I used the compound that came with the heatsink.  Okay, so backplate is mounted, the heatsink is snapped into place.  Quick and easy.  Well, except for one thing.  If you want to use EverCool’s backplates, you need to remove your motherboard.  This would not have been necessary had I not wanted to test those out as well, but I could have easily snapped the heatsink to my own hardware and left it at that.

The backplates left me very little room between my motherboard and the back of my case, and I’m sure that a hard hit on the side could cause some serious damage to my internal components.  Luckily, my case sits against a wall, so I have very little fear of that, but for those of you who want to use the inluded hardware, be sure that nothing happens to your machine.  You bump it into a wall while moving it in just the right way, and your motherboard could suffer horribly.

Okay, so everything is installed.  My PC is back together, and is turned on.  Here is what I am going to be testing this heatsink on:

• AMD Athlon 64 X2 2.9Ghz 5600+  (check prices)
• Asus M4N82 Deluxe Motherboard (check AMD motherboards)
• 2GB DDR2 RAM @ 800Mhz  (check prices)
• 1TB Western Digital SATA HDD  (check prices)
• Antec Twelve Hundred Black Tower Case (check prices)

The T4 takes up a lot of room

I am going to be running a stress test on my processor using Software Sandra, and this temperature will be my “load” temp.  My idle temperature is going to be how cool my PC is after sitting idle for half an hour.  I am leaving all the background programs running, as this is a real world test and most people have crap running in the background.  After half an hour of idle, my CPU temperature was around 40C with my usual heatsink, a stock heat-pipe build that came with my processor.  It is rated to cool all the way up to the 7000+ range.  I thought this was a pretty nice temperature, so I ran the stress test on the processor to see what would come up.  I got a steady 56C when all was said and done with.  A little high for my taste, but this is also without my usual fan setup as well.

Unusual idle temps, but performs better under load

Now we’ll check out how the T-4 compares under the same tests.  During the idle test, I was getting a steady 44C at the end.  Okay, that is completely unimpressive.  If a stock heatsink can beat a third party behemoth like the Transformer 4 then what good is it, really?  During the load test, the final reading was hovering around the 52C mark.  Not too bad, but why was it not able to keep the CPU cooler during the idle test?  Some of the reasons for this could be the low pressure of the quiet fans, or the efficiency of the heatpipes.  What is really puzzling is that the Titan Fenrir has a similar design and manages to outperform the T4.

As much as this heatsink is huge and capable of cooling a stressed dual-core under load, it is also a complete anomaly.  The fact that it was out-performed by a stock cooler during the idle test and then beat it during the stress test is just confusing.  Still a very good heatsink to have on your side when you are running your PC at full load, however.  But still, between those idle temps and the sheer weight, I still have my doubts.

	REPORT CARD : Evercool Transformer 4 CPU Heatsink category rating comments Quality 4 Good construction and materials, and good mounting materials. Innovation 3 The design is pretty standard Performance 4 Other heatsinks are able to outperform at idle temps, but does a much better job at load Installation 4 Requires motherboard removal, but it won’t be going anywhere.  Its weight and size may be a concern Value 3 Slightly cheaper than similar heatsinks.  You get good performance, but I’m a little wary of the idle temps. FINAL VERDICT: 4 out of 5 stars