Introduction

Continuing our cooler review series, we tested Evercool Buffalo, a low-cost CPU cooler with tower design, two U-shaped 6 mm heatpipes and a 100 mm fan. Will it perform as well as the more expensive coolers? Lets check it out!

Buffalo's box is simple, cardboard, with a graphic design in shades of red.

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Figure 1: Box.

Inside the box we where surprised to find only the cooler itself, plus a white thermal compound tube.

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Figure 2: Box contents.

The installation manual is actually on the outside of the box, as we can see in Figure 3. In this picture we also can see the information there is two models, one for Intel socket 775 CPUs and other for AMD processors. The product website shows also a new socket 1366 version.

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Figure 3: Manual on the box side.

The Evercool Buffalo

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Figure 4: Front view.

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Figure 5: Rear view.
 

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Figure 6: Side view.

The Evercool Buffalo (Cont'd)

The top part of the cooler shows the heatpipes tips, with nickel-plated caps. We can also see the Buffalo cooler logo. A curious thing is the logo show two red bulls, not buffalo. I have the feeling I have already seen this logo somewhere. Maybe I will have an energy drink while I try to remember where I know this scarlet bull from...

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Figure 7: Top view.

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Figure 8: Fan detail.

The base is made of pure copper, pretty smooth but not a mirrored finish.

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Figure 9: Base.

Installation

As we have seen in the previous figures, Buffalo's holding system is identhical to the one used on Intel stock coolers. So, you just need to put the cooler in place and press the four clips until you hear the characteristic click.

In Figure 10 we can see how Buffalo looks after it is installed on our motherboard. As it is not very big, it did not interfere with any motherboard component, nor with tall memory modules.

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Figure 10: Installed on motherboard.

In Figure 11 you can see the cooler installed into our case. It is not a big cooler, but it is not low, and will not fit slim or SFF cases.

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Figure 11: Installed on case.

How We Tested

We are adopting the following methodology on our CPU cooler reviews.

First we chose the CPU with the highest TDP (Thermal Design Power) we could: a Core 2 Extreme QX6850, which has a 130 W TDP. The choice for a CPU with a high TDP is obvious: as we want to measure how efficient the tested cooler is, we need a processor that gets very hot. This CPU works by default at 3.0 GHz, but we overclocked it to 3.33 GHz, in order to heat it as much as possible.

We took noise and temperature measurements with the CPU idle and under full load. In order to achieve 100% CPU load on the four processing cores we ran Prime95 on the "In-place Large FFTs" option and three instances of StressCPU program, at the same time.

We also compared the reviewed cooler to the Intel stock cooler (with copper base), which comes with the processor we used, and also with some other coolers we tested using the same methodology.

Temperature measurements were taken with a digital thermometer, with the sensor touching the base of the cooler, and also with the core temperature reading (given by the CPU thermal sensor) from the program SpeedFan. For this measurement we used an arithmetic average of the four core temperature readings.

Sound pressure level (SPL) was measured with a digital noise meter, with its sensor placed 4" (10 cm) from the fan. We turned off the video board cooler so it wouldn't interfere with the results, but this measurement is only for comparative purposes, because a precise SPL measurement needs to be done inside an acoustically insulated room with no other noise sources, that we do not have.

Hardware Configuration

• Processor: Core 2 Extreme QX6850
• Motherboard: Gigabyte EP45-UD3L
• Memory: 2 GB Corsair XMS2 DHX TWIN2X2048-6400C4DHX G (DDR2-800/PC2-6400 with timings 4-4-4-12), running at 800 MHz
• Hard drive: 500 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 (ST3500320AS, SATA-300, 7200 rpm, 32 MB buffer)
• Video card: PNY Verto Geforce 9600 GT
• Video resolution: 1680x1050
• Video monitor: Samsung Syncmaster 2232BW Plus
• Power supply: Seventeam ST-550P-AM
• Case: 3RSystem K100
  

Software Configuration

• Windows XP Professional installed on FAT32 partition
• Service Pack 3
• Intel Inf driver version: 8.3.1.1009
• nVidia video driver version: 182.08

Used Software

• Prime95
• StressCPU
• SpeedFan

Error Margin

We adopted a 2 ^oC error margin, i.e. temperature differences below 2 ^oC are considered not relevant.

Our Tests

On the tables below you can see our results. We ran the same tests with the coolers shown on below tables. Each test was ran with the CPU idle and the with the CPU fully loaded. On BigTyp 14Pro, TMG IA1, NH-U12P and ISGC-300 the tests were done with the fan at full speed and at minimum speed. The other coolers were connected directly to the motherboard and it controls the fan speed based on CPU load level and temperature on PWM models. ISGC-400 and iCEAGE Prima Boss were tested at minimum speed on idle test and at maximum speed on full load test.

On the graph below you can see the temperature difference between the cooler base and the room temperature with the CPU idle and fully loaded.  The values shown are in degrees Celsius. Remember that the lower the number, the better the cooling performance.

The next graph will give you an idea on how many degrees Celsius the CPU core was hotter than room temperature during the tests.

Main Features

Evercool Buffalo main features are:

• Application: Socket 775 processors.
• Fins: Aluminum.
• Base: Copper.
• Heat-pipes: Two 6 mm U-shaped copper heat-pipes.
• Fan: 100 mm.
• Nominal fan speed: 1,800 RPM.
• Fan air flow: Not informed.
• Maximum power consumption: Not informed.
• Nominal noise level: 23 dBA.
• Weight: 1.1 Lbs (500 g).
• More information: http://www.evercool.com.tw
• Average price in the US*: USD 17.00

* Researched on www.newegg.com on the day this reviews was published.

Conclusions

The Evercool Buffalo is not a high performance cooler. It is also not a silent cooler and the fact it always works at maximum speed makes it a bad option for someone who needs a silent computer, unless you connect it to a fan controller. So, if we look at the product itself, we concluded it is only an average cooler.

But the picture changes when we analyse the best feature on Buffalo: its price. Compared to other under USD 20 coolers, it has an excellent performance, beating even some more expensive coolers.

So, it deserves the Hardware Secrets Silver Award because, besides not offering a sensational performance, nor an extraordinary look, nor a low noise level, it is one of the best cost/benefit ratio coolers we have seen so far.

Originally at http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/839