Glacialtech Igloo 5750 Silent

[Pinchy]

To read this review go to: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/G...ch/Igloo_5750/

Please Digg the review to help us promote it.

[Silverel]

Seems a pretty high rating for something that runs hotter than a stock cooler. Quiet is nice and all, but there are other coolers that do tons better in terms of performance. I'd have given it a 7.5/10

[mlee49]

I agree, 9.0 is a bit high, maybe 8.0 for dual 90mm.

[Pinchy]

I was considering giving it a lower rating, but the cooler isn't designed for performance. The main goal of the fan is to be "silent, easy to install and resourceful (not waste many resources in creating the cooler)". At the price its estimated to be retailed at, its also fairly cheap.

See your not going to give a low end graphics card a bad rating because it doesnt perform as good as its higher end counterparts, but rather you would base the rating on its features and price.

The only reason it lost points was because of its performance and the fact that the second 90mm fan was almost totally pointless and made installation a little bit harder.

[bcurko]

Nice review pinchy i agree the review was aimed at Silent thinking in mind. So the 9.0 rating is to be expected. Although its cooling was short lived it still performed on par with the intel stock cooler.

Nice Start to the reviewing scheme
Keep them going Pinchy

[trog100]

being as the stock cooler comes free.. cools better.. but is noisier under load how would u rate that.. another 9..

i recon the reviewed cooler deserves an 8 at the most.. he he

i wonder why it cools so poorly.. it looks like it should do better.. probably would with a faster but noisier fan.. ??

trog

[Pinchy]

Originally Posted by trog100

being as the stock cooler comes free.. cools better.. but is noisier under load how would u rate that.. another 9..

i recon the reviewed cooler deserves an 8 at the most.. he he

i wonder why it cools so poorly.. it looks like it should do better.. probably would with a faster but noisier fan.. ??

trog

Yeah the fans don't have a very high RPM.

Still, I know a couple of people who would buy a third party cooler over the stock only for noise levels. The TT Golden orb was $50 RRP when it came out and that sold pretty well, which also performed on par with the stock cooler.

[mandelore]

hmm, have to agree, that 9 is waaay to high.

tbh, who cares about silence (well some will but...)when the performance is worse than the craptastic stock coolers you normally get with a cpu. anyone buying this is doing an own goal, paying extra for worse performance. There should have been some part in the review where maybe the stock fan was replaced with a fan comparable to another cooler and then see how it performs, saying that, the base looked like it could do with a lapping if the base center was the same as the surrounding metal

[Pinchy]

Originally Posted by mandelore

hmm, have to agree, that 9 is waaay to high.

tbh, who cares about silence (well some will but...)when the performance is worse than the craptastic stock coolers you normally get with a cpu. anyone buying this is doing an own goal, paying extra for worse performance. There should have been some part in the review where maybe the stock fan was replaced with a fan comparable to another cooler and then see how it performs, saying that, the base looked like it could do with a lapping if the base center was the same as the surrounding metal

Personally, I don't really care for silence either. That being said, in a review I can't be bias. The objective of the cooler is silence, and it meets its criteria.

Also, although the stock core 2 duo's are loud @ high RPM's, their cooling performance isn't that bad. Its not like the old stock coolers where your P4 would hit 80*C, it only hits 46 under full load at stock and 60 when overclocked at full load. I don't see that as very bad .

[mandelore]

Originally Posted by Pinchy

Personally, I don't really care for silence either. That being said, in a review I can't be bias. The objective of the cooler is silence, and it meets its criteria.

Also, although the stock core 2 duo's are loud @ high RPM's, their cooling performance isn't that bad. Its not like the old stock coolers where your P4 would hit 80*C, it only hits 46 under full load at stock and 60 when overclocked at full load. I don't see that as very bad .

well if its goal is silence, and u dont plan on overclocking much, just a really quiet rig, i can see what ya mean, and subsiquent scoring, hell, if anyone were an enthusianst after low temperatures they would get the best performing they could. point taken

[newtekie1]

I bet the stock fan would be just as quiet if you turned the fan down, and it would then cool just as poorly.

IMO, spending $30 on this is pointless when the stock cooler is just as good, and you can use your motherboard's software to lower the fan speed if you want to.

Also, what Intel stock fan are we talking about here? They are like 4 of them. I would like to see all of the Intel stock heatsinks tested.

[WarEagleAU]

Who cares what you all would have given it. When you do a review, give it whatever score you feel it justifies. Excellent review pinchy.

[trog100]

its a very nice review.. but 9 to me is very high score to give anything.. assuming its 9 out of 10.. start of giving not too bad things 9 and it dont leave much room for something thats really good..

just treat it as informed reader feedback pinchy..

also having two fans when one would do is bad design.. all in all a medicore product from how your otherwise excellent review describes it.. pretty much anything out there can be silent and cool worse when the fans are turned down.. having a fan or fans which only go slow is a negative to me.. but i wouldnt use any cooler that didnt come with adjustable fan speeds and aint mobo controled .. it dont exactly add much to the cost.. and silence does mean a lot to me..

trog

[Pinchy]

Originally Posted by newtekie1

I bet the stock fan would be just as quiet if you turned the fan down, and it would then cool just as poorly.

IMO, spending $30 on this is pointless when the stock cooler is just as good, and you can use your motherboard's software to lower the fan speed if you want to.

Also, what Intel stock fan are we talking about here? They are like 4 of them. I would like to see all of the Intel stock heatsinks tested.

e6750 Intel core 2 duo stock cooler. IMO if you turned the stock cooler fan lower, it will perform a lot worse than this Glacialtech. Just look at idle temps: when the Stock cooler is on its normal/low RPM (idle), it performs worse than the Glacialtech. Hence, I would think, if you were to keep it at those speeds when you put the CPU to load, it would perform a lot worse.

Originally Posted by trog100

its a very nice review.. but 9 to me is very high score to give anything.. assuming its 9 out of 10.. start of giving not too bad things 9 and it dont leave much room for something thats really good..

Lets leave it as: Pinchy can't give good ratings..LOL!

See I took it as "ok so the performance isn't all too good, basically same temps as stock cooler, just a little worse...well I am not going to take away more than 1 point for performance alone" (as performance was really only the bad thing about it). And, you have to give it slight points for performance because its not like it hit 80*C temps, so you can't give it 0. But, I never thought of things like "dont leave much room for something thats really good", which is also a good point you make. Oh well, whats done is done, can't change now...can only improve in the next review .

Originally Posted by trog100

but i wouldnt use any cooler that didnt come with adjustable fan speeds and aint mobo controled .. it dont exactly add much to the cost.. and silence does mean a lot to me..

There is an Igloo 5750 cooler that has a fan controller. If you look at the last pic under packaging, you can see that there are two models. The other one (5750 PWM) has higher RPM's and a fan controller, so it would be interesting to see how that performs (will look it up now).



All in all, thanks to all for the comments/feedback/constructive criticism. It is all very much appreciated!!

Just tell me what I need to fix up for my next review (Score will be taken into a lot more consideration next time )

[tkpenalty]

Originally Posted by mandelore

hmm, have to agree, that 9 is waaay to high.

tbh, who cares about silence (well some will but...)when the performance is worse than the craptastic stock coolers you normally get with a cpu. anyone buying this is doing an own goal, paying extra for worse performance. There should have been some part in the review where maybe the stock fan was replaced with a fan comparable to another cooler and then see how it performs, saying that, the base looked like it could do with a lapping if the base center was the same as the surrounding metal

I care. Nice review Pinchy good to see that you considered us silent PC Freaks. The reason why it performs poorly is the fact that it has such low fin area. As well as the fact that the fans are low RPM. However I would say that the second fan ISNT redundant. Its to probably even air pressure so therefore the acoustics of it arent deteriorated by turbulence-but there isn't any at that low airspeed...

The Intel stock cooler Pinchy was using was probably the ones that came on the first batch of E6xxx CPUs, Intel now replaced them with rather "craptastic" aluminium slug coolers, which have a louder fan. IF he was using a CPU like the E2xxx, the stock cooler would have looked like a piece of shit in comparison with this

[newtekie1]

Originally Posted by Pinchy

e6750 Intel core 2 duo stock cooler. IMO if you turned the stock cooler fan lower, it will perform a lot worse than this Glacialtech. Just look at idle temps: when the Stock cooler is on its normal/low RPM (idle), it performs worse than the Glacialtech. Hence, I would think, if you were to keep it at those speeds when you put the CPU to load, it would perform a lot worse.

I don't think so, I don't think the stock cooler would perform better than the 5750, but I think it would perform similarly, and still manage near silent operation. The stock cooler that came with my E6600 had a fan on it that only ran at 1600RPM when I put the processor under load, and it was almost silent then, I certainly couldn't hear it with the side panel on.

Besides that, with the Freezer 7 Pro being right at the same $30 price point, I don't see the cooler being worth the money.

[Pinchy]

Originally Posted by newtekie1

I don't think so, I don't think the stock cooler would perform better than the 5750, but I think it would perform similarly, and still manage near silent operation. The stock cooler that came with my E6600 had a fan on it that only ran at 1600RPM when I put the processor under load, and it was almost silent then, I certainly couldn't hear it with the side panel on.

I don't see how it would perform similarly at a lower RPM. The idle temps suggest it would perform 5-10 degrees warmer, from what I can see. Also, the Stock cooler is audible under load at high temps over my case fans.

Originally Posted by newtekie1

Besides that, with the Freezer 7 Pro being right at the same $30 price point, I don't see the cooler being worth the money.

I haven't seen how well the Freezer 7 performs, nor have I used one, so I wouldn't know if its worth it or not. That being said, even if it was perfect then so be it, give it a 10...its not like I gave this 5750 a 10.

[newtekie1]

Originally Posted by Pinchy

I don't see how it would perform similarly at a lower RPM. The idle temps suggest it would perform 5-10 degrees warmer, from what I can see. Also, the Stock cooler is audible under load at high temps over my case fans.

I haven't seen how well the Freezer 7 performs, nor have I used one, so I wouldn't know if its worth it or not. That being said, even if it was perfect then so be it, give it a 10...its not like I gave this 5750 a 10.

I'm not in the rating business, that is your job. I'm not disputing your rating, rate it what you want. I'm just offering suggestions to the users for better alternatives, the Freezer 7 is a very good alternative, and many people here will tell you that the Freezer 7 is a very good cooler. It is quiet, and performs well. The only issue is it doesn't look as pretty as this cooler, it isn't nickel plated.

I'm not saying drastically lowered RPMs, like it is at idle. At full blast my E6600 heatsink ran at 1600RPM, like I said. At idle I think it was around 500RPM, while the 5750(from what I gathered from your review) stays at the same speed constantly even when idle. I think the stock heatsink could run at something like 1200RPM and be virtually just as silent as the 5750 in a closed case with case fans, and keep the processor right around the 65°C mark like the 5750 did.

[Pinchy]

Originally Posted by newtekie1

I'm not in the rating business, that is your job. I'm not disputing your rating, rate it what you want. I'm just offering suggestions to the users for better alternatives, the Freezer 7 is a very good alternative, and many people here will tell you that the Freezer 7 is a very good cooler. It is quiet, and performs well. The only issue is it doesn't look as pretty as this cooler, it isn't nickel plated.

lol your saying its a waste of $30 and it isnt really. Some people dont care for temperature...they just want a silent, cheap and good looking cooler for their HTPC rig. This is perfect for them.

[newtekie1]

Originally Posted by Pinchy

lol your saying its a waste of $30 and it isnt really. Some people dont care for temperature...they just want a silent, cheap and good looking cooler for their HTPC rig. This is perfect for them.

Yes, and the stock cooler with the fan turned down is perfect for them too, which is why this is a waste of money. Under load this cooler was 5°C hotter than the Stock cooler. You could turn the Stock cooler's fan speed down to inaudible levels and keep the temperatures acceptable and save $30.

[Pinchy]

Originally Posted by newtekie1

Yes, and the stock cooler with the fan turned down is perfect for them too, which is why this is a waste of money.

Your assumption is that the stock cooler performs the same with the fan turned down.

And what about OEM CPU's where you save $50 because you don't get a box or stock cooler?

EDIT - well here you go, look at how much the Glacialtech beats the stock core 2 duo when running at similar noise levels:

http://www.frostytech.com/articlevie...id=2217&page=5

[newtekie1]

Originally Posted by Pinchy

Your assumption is that the stock cooler performs the same with the fan turned down.

And what about OEM CPU's where you save $50 because you don't get a box or stock cooler?

EDIT - well here you go, look at how much the Glacialtech beats the stock core 2 duo when running at similar noise levels:

http://www.frostytech.com/articlevie...id=2217&page=5

No, my experience is that the Core 2 Duo fan will be inaudible in a case when turned down to ~75% and still cool the processor just fine.

OEM coolers is another story, if you are getting an OEM CPU and need a cooler, then buy one. I'm just saying it isn't worth it if you already have the stock cooler.

The interesting thing about the Frosty review is that they said all variable speed fans were run at full blast, I can only assume they mean the stock Intel cooler too. So it kind of conflicts with you saying that the Intel fan at full speed is louder. According to them the two sound virtually the same.

[Pinchy]

Originally Posted by newtekie1

The interesting thing about the Frosty review is that they said all variable speed fans were run at full blast, I can only assume they mean the stock Intel cooler too. So it kind of conflicts with you saying that the Intel fan at full speed is louder. According to them the two sound virtually the same.

I doubt that. If that was the case, why would they list the stock Pent. D cooler @ being "high"?

Anywho, it can't have been set to high, because I don't see how the Glacialtech would perform 20*C cooler when I got the temps that I did. And, we all know the stock cooler is fairy audible when turned up to high. (It is definately not silent, which is 36 dBa)

[newtekie1]

Originally Posted by Frosty

For reference heatsinks with variable-speed fans, only the high speed (12V) fan test result is included in the comparison sheet; more detailed results reside in each specific heatsink review.

You can doubt all you want, that is what they did. And no, the stock cooler isn't fairly audible when turned up to high. My E6600 fan was barely audible at full speed, it was only running at 1600RPM. My Celeron heatsink was very loud though because the fan ran at 2600RPM. How audible the stock cooler is depends on what stock cooler we are talking about. The Core 2 Duo heatsink isn't really audible.

http://www.frostytech.com/articlevie...articleID=2132

If you read the Frosty review of the Intel Heatsink, they estimate the ran runs at 1500RPM(close to my 1600RPM) and at the RPM the noice level was almost identical to the 5750 according to them, and according to you the Intel Fan performs better. They also comment about how the old Intel Heatsinks(Pentium D) ran the fan at a faster speed and was louder.

Also, Frosty does make a point that the stock Intel heatsink is from a Core 2 Duo, which is expected to have a heat load of ~85w, and not the 150w heat load they test with. The stock heatsink that comes with the Quads is designed for the 150w load. So on the 150w test the Core 2 Quad heatsink would do a lot better. Even on the 85w test, the Core 2 Duo heatsink did worse, but the rise of ambient was only 29°C, an ambient of 25°C would only give you 54°C with the stock cooler. More than acceptable.

[Pinchy]

Originally Posted by newtekie1

You can doubt all you want, that is what they did. And no, the stock cooler isn't fairly audible when turned up to high. My E6600 fan was barely audible at full speed, it was only running at 1600RPM. My Celeron heatsink was very loud though because the fan ran at 2600RPM. How audible the stock cooler is depends on what stock cooler we are talking about. The Core 2 Duo heatsink isn't really audible.

http://www.frostytech.com/articlevie...articleID=2132

If you read the Frosty review of the Intel Heatsink, they estimate the ran runs at 1500RPM(close to my 1600RPM) and at the RPM the noice level was almost identical to the 5750 according to them, and according to you the Intel Fan performs better. They also comment about how the old Intel Heatsinks(Pentium D) ran the fan at a faster speed and was louder.

Also, Frosty does make a point that the stock Intel heatsink is from a Core 2 Duo, which is expected to have a heat load of ~85w, and not the 150w heat load they test with. The stock heatsink that comes with the Quads is designed for the 150w load. So on the 150w test the Core 2 Quad heatsink would do a lot better. Even on the 85w test, the Core 2 Duo heatsink did worse, but the rise of ambient was only 29°C, an ambient of 25°C would only give you 54°C with the stock cooler. More than acceptable.

Okay I don't know what stock cooler came with your e6700, but the one with the e6750 at high RPM is noticable over my noisy 92mm case fan, dual 120mm case fans and dual 80mm power supply fans. I'm not saying its as bad as the older Stock coolers (eg Prescott ones) but it definately is not silent.

Now, I did 85W tests (the stock tests). If what you are saying is true, how do you explain how their Glacialtech got 18.5 over ambient and their stock got 29 over ambient, when my Glacialtech got 1 degree over stock?

Also, at more watt levels (more heat levels) you say the stock cooler performs a lot worse. Why does their Glacialtech get a massive 20*C cooler than the stock, whilst mine performs 5*C worse?

I am 100% certain that my Stock cooler is variable as I don't touch the speed settings in reviews and I noticed the Stock cooler spinning faster during the test (as I put load on the CPU). I don't know what their means of testing were, but I can't see how their Stock cooler performed so much worse than mine OR how their Glacialtech performed so much better if they were running it at full the whole time.