DeepCool Gammaxx S40 Overview
Two things struck me when once I had the cooler and components out of the box. First, that the cooler really is a pretty compact design. If it can cool well DeepCool certainly has a winner on their hands. The second was the simplicity of the components. Including the four screws and cooler itself there are a total of only 10 separate items. This is nice considering how complex some air cooler mounting schemes are. Minimizing the complexity of the cooler reduces the chance for user error and increases consistency in performance.
The cooler comes with a DeepCool brand 120mm fan. This is a very unique fan once you give it a close look. The fans frame is a bowl shape that looks like it should focus the air into one specific area. It is claimed to also help to cool the surrounding components on the motherboard such as the mosfets. This pwm fan is rated at 900-1600rpm, so it should be fairly quiet. It is held to the cooler by wire fan clips.
As mentioned, the cooler is a direct contact design meaning all four heatpipes directly contact the CPU’s surface. The contact surface looks fairly flat, but it comes preinstalled with TIM and is hard to check for sure. In respect to the pre-applied TIM, it is a very thin coat and I would not expect anything impressive here. You are definitely limited to a single installation as well.
Heat is then moved vertically through the fully nickel plated copper pipes and fins where it is dissipated. The fins themselves are unique in that they have cut out sections that allow and direct air up through the whole stack. This also allows for passive cooling by allowing heat the more easily rise.
Reviews from other sources (e.g. http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/4312/6x-deepcool-cpu-cooler-review-strong-newcomer) show that this cooler achieves fair cooling performance – not a killer, but definitely a lot better than the Intel stock cooler.
This suggests that your test rig or procedure was flawed – you may not have installed the cooler correctly, and apparently didn’t bother to double-check when the performance was terrible.
“Underperforming and lacklustre” is an excellent description of this review. Please do better next time.
The link you mention does not reference the the Gammaxx S40, there is a GammaXX 300 there, but it is a different cooler, less heatpipes and a different block design…
Here are two more reviews of the GammaXX S40:
– Tweaktown: http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/5514/deepcool-gammax-s40-cpu-cooler-review/index9.html
– Frosty Tech: http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=2721
Both articles again very much saying the contrary of what is claimed here…