Thermaltake Blue Orb II

The test bed here, as with all of my cooler reviews, is as follows:

• Processor – AMD 3700+ San Diego 1MB L2
• Motherboard – DFI LanParty Ultra – D
• Video Card – eVGA 7800 GT
• Power Supply – Ultra X-Finity 500W PSU
• Memory – 512 x 2 Crucial Ballistix
• Hard Disk – 1 WD Raptor 74 GB / Seagate 160 GB
• Sound Card – Creative Audigy ZS2
• OS – Windows XP Pro / SP2

I knew going into this review, rather I assumed, that this was going to be a good performing cooler. I have owned Thermaltake products in the past and have never been upset with my purchases. They have performed up to my expectations and this cooler was not any different.

I have said, time and time again, that ambient temperatures will affect your overall CPU temps more than you would think. I keep my house cool in the summer and cool in the winter. This helps my PC stay cool but mainly I am cheap. My hatred for heat and humidity trumps my cheapness though. To find the load temps, I decided this time to render an image I made in one of my PC graphics classes as well as run CPU burn-in to further tax the CPU and get it hot, and quickly!

Anyway, let’s take a look at how the Blue Orb did.

Up until this point, the Zalman 9500 has been the top dog in cooling but it has a new rival in the Blue Orb II. The idle temps were lower than the Zalman which surprised me quite a bit. When we look at the load temps however the Blue Orb II toped out at 36 degrees Celsius. This, while not as low as the Zalman, is certainly a good temperature and I can’t very well hold it against the Blue Orb as anything under 40*C to me, is great when stressing the CPU as I was.

All in all, I have no reservations giving this cooler a solid 9. As I will list below, there were a few things that I thought could have been improved but all in all, this is a solid cooler that I would recommend to anyone looking for one of the top air cooler out on the market at this time. You certainly can’t go wrong with the Thermaltake Blue Orb II.

Pros
• Very efficient
• Quiet
• Cool blue 120mm fan
• Cools not only the CPU but overhangs RAM on the DFI Ultra-D

Cons
• Huge
• Heavy
• No fan controller

This, while not perfect, is a great cooler for an Intel or AMD system. The faults are not a big deal and should not sway you away from considering this cooler as an upgrade for you PC. The only word of advice I can give, is make sure your RAM will not interfere with your cooler. Like I said earlier, this is a giant cooler. Other than the size, I am happy with this cooler. Go buy one!

Thanks to Thermaltake for making this review possible. Your fine products didn’t start with this cooler and I hope they don’t end with this cooler either.

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