Manufacturers product page - Xigmatek HDT-SD964
Product name-HDT-SD964
Product number-CAC-S9HH4-UO1
Prices - Click for Prices



Introduction


In this review I will be taking a look at a compact heat pipe direct touch cooler from Xigmatek. The HDT-SD964 is the little brother of Xigmatek's successful HDT-S1283 and HDT-S1284 CPU heatsink coolers. The HDT-SD964 is marketed as a high performance cooler designed to fit in smaller cases. This unit is very similar in design to its larger siblings and sports four 6mm direct touch heatpipes and a 92mm PWM fan. How does this compact cooler perform and how does it stack up against larger coolers you ask? Well, let’s find out.


Features - (from Xigmatek website)

• H.D.T. (Heat-pipe direct touch) technology.
• Anti-vibration rubber design.
• Option of Double fans installed design.
• 4 pcs high performance U type heat-pipe.
• Light weight.
• High performance, easy installation.
• 92mm highly efficient PWM fan.
• 3 in 1 application: LGA775: push-pin / K8 & AM2 tool-less clip.

Technical Specifications

Heat sink
Base Material: Copper (Heat-pipe Direct Touch)
Fin Material: Aluminum Alloy

Heat-pipe
Heat-pipe SPEC: Φ6mm
Quantity: 4

Fan
Dimensions: 92(W) x 92(H) x 25(D) mm
Voltage Rating: 12V
Speed: 1200~2800 R.P.M.
Bearing Type: Rifle Bearing
Air Flow: 39~54.6 CFM
Air Pressure: 1.7~3.3 mmH2O
Life Expectance: 50000 hrs
Noise Level: 22~34 dBA
Connector: 4 pin with PWM

Overall Dimensions
Dimensions: 92(W) x 51(H) x 133(D) mm
Thermal Resistance: 0.18℃/W
Weight: 466g (w/fan)

Application

• All Intel® Socket 775 CPU
  • Core™2 Extreme / Quad / Duo
  • Pentium® Extreme Edition / D
  • Celeron® D
    
• All AMD Sockets:
  • AM2 / 754 / 939 / 940 CPU
  • Athlon™ 64 / FX / X2 / Opteron™ / Sempron™

Packaging and accessories



The cooler arrived at my house via Fedex in its retail box. Like most Xigmatek coolers, the HDT-SD964 has a flashy looking box with a plastic window that shows the included fan. On the sides and back of the box are specifications and pictures of sections of the cooler. It would be nice to see what the cooler looked like before you bought it, but that information is easily accessed on the internet, so no biggie. Inside the box we find the cooler, instructions, mounts for various sockets, and some TIM.



The cooler and fan are stacked upon each other and nestled in high quality foam, with nary a bent fin or any other damage. I appreciate the effot Xigmatec has taken to prevent shipping damage. Once unpacked, the contents can be sorted. There are eight fan mounts, brackets for AMD and push pin Intel processors, a molex fan connector, mounting screws and a 92mm PWM controlled fan.




Once the cooler is out by itself, you can see that it is a standard design with the heatpipes lined up in a row behind each other. One detail worth noting is that there are notches on both sides of the cooler that will allow the use of two fans if desired, and indeed there are eight rubber fan mounts included, a nice touch. All the fins are flat with the exception of dimples formed in each side on the leading and trailing edge of each fin that I am assuming disrupt and slow the airflow to allow more heat to be taken away. In previous Xigmatek coolers, the dimples were also used to affix a spoiler that directed air down to cool motherboard components, however in this kit there was not a spoiler included.





Here is a picture of the HDT-SD964 beside the HDT-S1284. You can see besides the difference in size, there are subtle differences in the design of the fin edges and heatpipe size and orientation. The base looks almost identical, with the main difference being the 8 mm heatpipes on the larger cooler, and mounting provisions for only one fan.



A close up of the base shows the aluminum base that holds the 6mm heatpipes in alignment. They aluminum base will absorb some heat but the heatpipes do the lion’s share of the heat transfer and are responsible for the efficiency of the cooler.


As with all Xigmatek coolers there is a protective plastic film that protects the base until it is put in use. When the plastic is peeled off, you can see the slightly rough finish of the cooler base. If you think you can lap the base of this cooler, think again. The heatpipes have already been machined down and are very thin. You run the risk of sanding right through the heatpipe and ruining the cooler. I checked the flatness of the base with a straightedge and found it to be perfectly flat.




Before I began putting the brackets on the cooler, I mocked up the cooler on the motherboard to see if I had any conflicts. As you can see, for my motherboard, all was well.




Supplied separately with this cooler was a Crossbow back plate mount kit to provide a sturdier mount that the Intel pushpin style will allow. The Crossbow comes in an opaque plastic box that leaves you guessing on the contents until it is unpacked
Included in the kit are the back plate, brackets, and instructions.



The Crossbow mounts replace the Intel pushpin mounts and are affixed with a screw in the same spot the Intel pushpin type of mounts would have been. Once I had the brackets on to my satisfaction it was time for TIM application and mounting. As with the other direct touch heatpipe coolers, there is a way to apply the TIM to get proper coverage on the cpu heatspreader. You can see the different results in a previous review of mine.




[font=Verdana][color=white]As I attempted to screw the cooler down to the backplate under the motherboard, one screw would not engage. I removed the cooler and gave the backplate another look. On closer inspection I could see that one of the threaded holes was not finished and that there was no way I would be able to use this backplate. If you look carefully at the picture below,you can see it is the upper left hand hole that is not finished. Fortunately I had another Crossbow back plate that I substituted for it



After I applied the TIM and screwed the cooler down onto the cpu, I removed the cooler to check for coverage. As you can see even with smaller 6mm heat pipes there is still some areas that do not come in direct contact with the cpu heat spreader. There will be some cooling potential lost there.


Once I was satisfied my coverage was adequate I mounted the cooler to the motherboard.



Once I had the cooler securely mounted I mounted the included 92mm PWM fan. Contrary to the instructions given with the cooler, I find it easier to mount the rubber pins to the cooling fins, and then attach the fan. Xigmatek gives directions to mount the rubber pins to the fan first, but I found that to be harder.

I also tried a something a little different this time. I lubricated the rubber pins with a small amount of the liquid used to moisten a popular automotive vinyl dashboard conditioner. Previously I have used a small amount of water to lubricate the pins with but found that when I wanted to remove the fan later, the water was dried up and the fan difficult to remove. This resulted in a broken pin when the end pulled off. Only time will tell if the rubber will degrade because of this but the product is sold as a vinyl and rubber conditioner so I am hopeful it will not.

I can say that when using the vinyl lubricant, the process of installing and removing the fan on the rubber pins was much easier due to the reduced friction. The fans will still be held securely because of the shoulder on the pins. I initially did not care much for the rubber pins but now I like them much more and find them to be a satisfactory way to mount the fans.


The fan itself is a 1200-2800 rpm, PWM controlled, 92mm rifle bearing fan. According to the Xigmatek info, is good for 50,000 hours, which is about 5.7 years, a very decent number indeed. The bearing itself is of mid range quality and can be used in any orientation, vertical or horizontal.

I reassembled the computer and fired it up for testing. I had previously mounted an Intel cooler and recorded the results of the same tests I would run the Xigmatek through. All my results will be now be recorded as CPU temperatures above ambient to allow for easier cross-referencing and comparison in the future.



Test Section



For testing I used the system as follows:

· Intel Q9450 processor

· Asus P5Q deluxe motherboard

· Buffalo Firestix PC2-6400 2x1gb.

· PC Power and Cooling Silencer 750 Quad psu.

· Evga 9800 GTSC gpu.

· Top Deck tech station

· Arctic Cooling MX-2 High Performance Thermal Compound

All temperatures were recorded using Core Temp. Load tests were done using four instances of Prime 95, one on each core. I ran each idle and load test three times for 30 minutes each, with 30 minute spacing before and after each test to stabilize temperatures. I removed the cooler and re-applied the MX-2 after each round.


Here are the results:


Once all the temperatures are averaged, the Xigmatek HDT-SD964 gave a slight drop at idle over the stock Intel cooler but when loaded gave an astonishing 14C average drop over the Intel cooler!
For such a small cooler this is indeed good performance. Even when overclocked to 3.6 ghz and run under load, the Xigmatek kept the Q9450 at a maximum temp of 60-56-56-55 measured in C.

The only downside to this performance is that the included 92mm PWM fan is quite noisy and would probably not be acceptable for people looking for quiet systems. To see if I could improve upon the noise level I mounted a Scythe Kaze-JYU 100mm fan and again recorded temps. To my satisfaction the fan noise was greatly reduced with the same temperatures being recorded. I had to mod the fan slightly to allow the short rubber pins to be used but it was easily done. Any good quality 92mm fan would likely give the same results.

To test the application of two fans on this cooler, I left the Scythe fan on in push mode and installed the Xigmatek supplied fan on in pull mode. I then ran Prime 95 with the Q9450 overclocked at 3.6 ghz to see if it made any difference. With this setup I realized another 1-2C drop per core! Wow!


Final thoughts

Pros

• Small footprint fits in many cases
• Good quality fasteners
• Good quality unit
• Good cooling performance at high loads
• Available bolt through kit
• Compatibility with all popular CPU’s
• Smaller size/weight to similar cooling performance than many high performance coolers
• You can use two fans

Cons

• Supplied fan is noisy
• Fan bearing is not as good as it could be

I am quite impressed with this cooler, It is straightforward to mount and its size in relation to its performance is excellent. I recommend this to anyone looking fora small yet high performance cooler. The Xigmatek HDT-SD964 is Ap0c Approved in my books.


I would like to thank Xigmatek for supplying us with the HDT-SD964 for our review. We look forward to working with them again in the future.