Spire KestrelKing V CPU Cooler

If you have an Athlon 64 and are looking to upgrade your stock cooling solution, Spire may have the answer. Today, We are taking a look at their KestrelKing V. Let’s jump in and see how much of a real upgrade this is from stock!

How many of you have saved countless pennies and sold our own blood in hope to one day, shell out all of our hard earned money on a brand new processor that we can be proud of and call our own. *holds hand up high*

How many of us have also tried to skate by with the provided stock heat sink and fan that is included with our new processors? *once again, holds hand up high*

Today we are going to take a look at a product designed to do one thing and one thing only, cool our hot PCs.

I have in my hand a new offering from a wonderful company named Spire Cooling Solutions. While this products name leaves very little to be desired, the SP792B12-U Kestrel King V is a nice looking product and I am anxious to see if the cooling power will cool as well as this thing looks. The first thing I notice is that it strongly resembles a stock heat sink from AMD but with slightly thinner fins. It is made of aluminum with a small copper base in the middle of the base of the heat sink. This cooler will be pitted in a no holds barred cool off with a Zalman 7000Cu as well as the stock heat sink and fan that came with my AMD 3700+ s939 at 2.2GHz.

For the tests, I ran CPU Burn-In for 35 minutes with the side door on my case closed and locked. After the 35 minutes ended, I immediately recorded the temps of the CPU and entered them into my super secret graph making program so I wouldnt forget.

Enough of the small talk, onto the temps!

Much to my surprise, the Spire did quite a bit better than the stock heat sink and fan. The Zalman did better in the end but its not quite a fair match since the Zalman is made entirely out of copper and has a much better thermal conductor. Seeing the similarities between the design of the Spire and the stock heat sink, I am surprised how much better the Spire cools the CPU over its aluminum brother.

I want everyone to know that these temps might seem a bit low, but I keep my house around 72 degrees and I have long said that ambient temps in your house and around you case make more of a difference than I think most people realize. I personally like it cool in my house so obviously it shows in my results. These tests were also used with Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste.

All in all, I must say that I am surprised that this did so well when placed head to head with the stock AMD heat sink. Having said that, if you have the money, I would opt for the more efficient, and more expensive, Zalman cooler. To wrap this up, I would not have any problem recommending this cooler to anyone who isnt satisfied with the performance of their current stock heat sink. I am giving this cooler an 8 out of 10 on our Techgage ometer. This is a quality, well made product from an equally great company. Many thanks go out to Spire Cooling Solutions.

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