Xigmatek Dark Knight SD1283 and Loki SD963 Review

Testing:

Testing of these heatsinks 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 these two Xigmatek coolers as well as the comparison units. All the data shown in the graphs below is in degrees Celsius. The included thermal paste from Xigmatek will be used during testing and thermal pastes from other heatsinks provided by their respective manufacturers will be used. The fan(s) on each cooler will be run at full speed for these tests.

Testing Setup:

• Processor: Intel Core i7 2600K - Stock and @ 4.4GHz
• Motherboard: Gigabyte Z68 AP-D3 Rev 2.0
• Memory: Mushkin Blackline PC3 16000 9-9-9-24 1600MHz
• Video Card: XFX Radeon HD 7970
• 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 Obsidian Series 650D

Comparison Heatsinks:

• ENERMAX ETS-T40
• Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo
• Corsair Hydro H100
• Thermaltake Frio Advanced
• Phanteks PH-TC14PE
• Noctua NH-D14
• Deepcool Ice Wind Pro
• Stock Intel

With these coolers tested, it's easy to say that these coolers performed exactly as I expected them to do. The Loki SD963 fell off a little bit in the overclocked load testing — but due to its small mass, I expected this to happen.