AMA Orc Review

Testing:

Testing the AMA Orc heat sink is gone about by first installing the heat sink onto the LGA 1366 MSI X58 Platinum with the proper brackets and included thermal paste. Once installation is complete, the system is tested twice for both idle and loaded temperatures in Vista Ultimate 64-bit. The first test is at stock processor speed with no turbo or power saving features, and for load, Prime95 with small FFT's is used. Next the system is lightly overclocked to 166 BCLK causing the processor to run at an effective 3.33GHz. Idle and load temperatures are then recorded for the overclocked run. CPU voltage is keyed in at around 1.25V, and the testing is done inside a computer case with decent but common airflow. The average of the core temperatures is used in the graphs. Ambient temperature is kept around 75F with the temperature during this test at 74F. Once testing is complete the results are compared to other heat sinks that were tested.

Testing System:

• Processor: Intel i7 920
• Motherboard: MSI X58 Platinum
• Memory: Mushkin HP3 12800 3x2GB DDR3
  
• Video Card: nVidia GTX260 216sp
• Power Supply: Mushkin 800 watt Modular power supply
• Hard Drive: 1 x Western Digital Green 1TB SATA
• OS: Windows Vista Ultimate 64-Bit SP1

Comparison Heat sinks:

• ZEROTherm Core 92
• Evercool Transformer 4
• Titan Fenrir TTC-NK85TZ(RB)
• Stock Intel i7 Heatsink
• Gelid Silent Spirit
• Noctua NH-U12P SE 1366

The AMA Orc idled higher than all of the other heat sinks. For heat pipe systems to work efficiently, the heat pipes must move heat away quickly - so depending on the coolant used in the pipes, they may start pumping heat away more efficiently at a higher temperature. At load the Orc was second worst at stock speeds, but passed the Gelid SS by far in the overclocked results. No matter what, the AMA Orc beat the stock Intel heat sink in loading.