Testing

As per usual, we fitted the Thermaltake v14 Pro onto our notoriously toasty test system and mounted it into our heatsink testing chassis, a Lancool Metal Boned K7. This case uses a fairly standard front to back dual 120mm intake / solo 120mm exhaust cooling set up to cool our hardware, and we feel represents an “average” PC case cooling configuration.

Following our standard heatsink testing methodology, we then run idle and CPU stress tests three times, including fully re-fitting the heatsink between tests to ensure we eliminate any potentially erroneous results caused by variables in the mounting process. These variables could include differences in the tension of the mounting bracket, consistency and amount of thermal paste applied or improper mounting and can seriously compromise the accuracy of test results.

We use the results from the three separate test runs to create a set of average temperatures – that's exactly what you're seeing here in our results tables. We order our results based on the delta T value of the CPU under load – this means the difference between the ambient temperatures that we tested in and the highest CPU temperature are recorded.





Well the Thermaltake v14 Pro certainly isn’t going to be winning any thermal performance awards, recording some very mediocre results in comparison to the other coolers we’ve looked at in our new test set up. A delta T value of 29°C at load is pretty unimpressive, with the cooler unable to surpass our test set up’s fairly average Asus Silent Square cooler in performance, let alone reach the lofty heights of the top five. While the performance isn’t as bad as the recent disappointing efforts from Scythe, they’re utterly mediocre.

We feel that the orientation of the cooler is certainly to blame for adding a few degrees to these results – the cooler is obviously designed to be fitted in line with the rear exhaust fan, taking advantage of the case’s normal airflow, but the sheer width of the cooler means that you have to mount it with the cooling fan and fins at 90 degrees to the case airflow just to fit it into most ATX cases.

The caseless 140mm is also a likely culprit for the average performance – during our testing the airflow it was generating was blowing out in pretty much every direction, rather than being focussed through the cooling fins where it needs to be to ensure optimal heat dissipation.

Sadly acoustic performance was just as average as the thermal performance – the cooler was clearly audible over the sound of our test set up’s cooling fans, even despite the fact that the 140mm fan has no casing or shroud to create air turbulence and thus noise. Dropping the fan to 5V saw the noise situation improve greatly, and the cooler was fantastically quiet, although thermal performance took a big hit with the delta T value dropping a miserable 33°C, which is one of the poorest results we've recorded to date.