Spire Gemini Rev. 2 Review

Testing and Setup:

Testing of this heatsink will involve applying a load simulated by Prime95, using small FFTs in stock and overclocked scenarios, where both idle and load temperatures will be recorded. Load temperatures will be the maximum value displayed in RealTemp after running eight threads in Prime95 for one hour, and idle temperatures will be the minimum recorded value by RealTemp with no computer usage during a period of one hour. The temperature values for each of the four cores will be averaged and displayed in the graphs below. The ambient temperature is held at a constant 23 °C throughout testing of the Gemini Rev. 2 as well as the comparison units. All the data shown in the graphs below is in degrees Celsius. The included thermal paste from Spire will be used during testing and thermal pastes on other heatsinks from their respective manufacturers will be used. The fans on each cooler will be run at full speed for these tests.

Testing Setup:

• Processor: Intel Core i7 920 - Stock and @ 3.44ghz, 1.27v
• Cooling: Spire Gemini Rev. 2
• Motherboard: MSI X58 Platinum SLI
• Memory: Mushkin Blackline PC3 16000 9-9-9-24 1600MHz
• Video Card: XFX HD6970 2GB
• Power Supply: Mushkin 1000 watt Joule Modular power supply
• Hard Drive: 1 x Seagate 1TB SATA
• Optical Drive: Lite-On DVD-RW
• OS: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
• Case: Corsair Graphite Series 600T

Comparison Heatsinks:

• Stock Intel heatsink
• Cooler Master Hyper 612 PWM
• NZXT Havik 140
• Corsair H60
• Noctua NH-D14
• Noctua NH-U12P SE

Given the cooler's size, weight, material, fan flow, and overall build quality, the numbers are a little higher than where I expected them to be. It ended up right in the middle and tied with the likes of the $20 cheaper Cooler Master Hyper 612 PWM. I can guarantee that this is due to the base and not from its other qualities!