The Dominator installed quite easily, I found the clip to be very good especially sense I did not have to use a screwdriver to do it. Here’s how it looks installed, as you can see there is plenty of room around it. When I powered up the computer the 48dB were definitely there, the fan is quite loud. Lets see if the loudness of the fan proves to yeild good results.
As always I will be using Artic Silver 3 for testing, and will be using an external Compunurse thermal probe for the temperature readings. After booting up the computer I let the CPU idle for about 30 minutes and took the readings from the Compunurse. After taking those results I used Prime95 to torture test the CPU and bring it to load. Here are the results.
The OCZ Dominator² performed really well keeping the CPU at a low temperature under load, under 40 degrees Celsius is really good. The increase of temperature from idle to load was only 3.5 degrees which is also really good.
Conclusion
Overall the OCZ Dominator² is a really good heatsink, it has a good and easy to use clip and comes with a high-powered fan to keep those hot AMD CPUs at a good temperature. I really like the ability to monitor RPMs with this heatsink; most high-powered fans need a 3-4 pin adapter, which means you cannot monitor RPMs.
Although the base is not finished to the highest quality I don’t think that lapping it to a perfectly smooth surface would necessarily make that big of a difference it would just be nice to have it finished correctly. Overall I really like this heatsink and if your looking for a powerful heatsink to keep your overclocked CPU cool this will definitely do the job. I would like to thank Paul from PC PitStop for sending this over to review, head on over and pick one up.
Pros
- Excellent performance
- Good price ($16.99)
- Able to monitor RPMs
- Good clip design
- Low profile design
- Fan grill included
Cons
- Loud fan
- Base poorly finished
