Thermaltake ISGC-300
PrintKind to the ears, deadly to heat
Everyone and their CPU-cooler-manufacturing mother are jumping aboard the skyscraper-formfactor bandwagon, hoping to match the performance of Thermalright’s Ultra-120 eXtreme and Noctua’s NH-U12P air coolers. Last month we tested Zalman’s attempt, and this month we have Thermaltake’s answer, the ISGC-300, one of a series of four ISGC-branded air coolers recently released into the wild. Thermaltake’s creative relationship with the English language is responsible for the ISGC moniker, which stands for “Inspiration of Silent Gaming Cooling.”
The ISGC-300 consists of a copper heat exchanger with four heat pipes running into a tower of 33 saw-toothed fins. At 6.24 inches high by five inches wide by 2.8 inches deep, it’s slightly shorter and narrower than Thermalright’s Ultra-120, but about a quarter-inch deeper. A 12cm white Thermaltake hydrodynamic-bearing fan is held onto the front using metal clips in a manner reminiscent of the Noctua NH-U12P. The nine-bladed fan is quiet and includes a variable-speed switch in lieu of a four-pin PVM connector. At its quietest, it’s nearly silent; at its loudest, it’s still damned quiet.
The now-familiar formfactor of Thermaltake's ISGC-300 brings the cooling prowess we've come to expect.
Unlike most of the coolers we’ve reviewed recently, with their backplates, finicky spring screws, and wobbly mounting brackets, the ISGC is pretty painless to install. You screw the mounting brackets onto the bottom of the cooler, then secure them to the motherboard with nuts and washers—no backplate or long-handled screwdriver required, although if your motherboard tray doesn’t have a cutout for the CPU, you’ll have to remove your motherboard for the install. The lack of a backplate, which provides stability, could be an issue if you plan to ship the box a long distance. But frankly, we’ve had no problems with far larger heatsinks that lack backplates. Like most coolers of this style and size, you may have to mount the heatsink so it’s parallel with your RAM, as mounting the other way may bump into RAM cooling fins.
At its highest fan speed, the ISGC cool to within a few degrees of our champion air cooler, Thermalright’s U120-eXtreme. The ISGC-300 cooled an idling CPU to within a half-degree Celsius of the Thermalright, and at full burn the ISGC’s temps were less than two degrees Celsius higher than the Thermalright’s. Thermaltake has taken a step in the right direction with the ISGC-300, with its relatively easy install, competitive price, near-silent operation, and performance that comes close to the category leader.
Thermaltake ISGC-300
Give
Easy to install; quiet, variable-speed fan; good performance; competitively priced.
Take
Bulky; can interfere with RAM cooling if installed facing upward.
8
Benchmarks
| Thermaltake ISGC-300 | Thermalright U120-eXtreme | Stock Cooler | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Idle (C) | 27.75 | 27.25 | 38.75 |
| 100% Burn (C) | 45 | 43.25 | 70.5 |
Best scores are bolded. Idle temperatures were measured after an hour of inactivity; load temperatures were measured after an hour's worth of CPU Burn-in (four instances). Test system consists of a stock-clock Q6700 processor on an EVGA 680i motherboard inside a Cooler Master ATCS 840 case with stock fans.
More like this
sjankis630
November 05, 2009 at 10:00am
Can anyone recommend a constructive solution?
I have the Thermaltake ISGC-300 now in my current setup.
Coolermaster ATCS 840 full tower
ASuS P6T mother board
Corsair 850TX PSU
Intel i7-920 PSU
6gb corsair XMS3
At idle I get around 27 -29c, but under load Prime 95 8 cores 100%(without any overclocking) after about 20 min I am at 63c! and it stays there continually.
i have the fan turned to the highest (it is still pretty silent) Plenty of ventilation in the basement of a house with the avg ambient temp around 67f.
I was going to overclock this to aroudn 3.6, but if it is already pulling 62-63 then I would be lucky to get it to 3.2-3.3 and keep the temps around 70c. (which I would rather not exceed)
The only thing I can think of doing is re-installing the cpu fan (I spread a complete layer of thermal paste ) and start over. What I didn't do is just put the blob of paste there and mount. (which I have heard is another way to do it) I don't have to take out the motherboard to re-install the cpu fan with this case, but was thinking was it worth starting over or maybe picking another cpu fan while I had the case open. Also I used the thermal paste that came with the Thermaltake isgc-300 if that makes any difference. Any solutions which don't cost too much.
I was hoping for temps in the mid 50s at stress without overclock.
Thanks in advance.
WFUJay
October 31, 2009 at 10:09am
So MaxPC is still fiddling around with average heatsinks and still claiming the Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme and Noctua NH-U12P the kings of air coolers when the Prolimatech Megahalems is just as good or better as either of those heatsinks in pretty much every test. Would it really kill you guys to stop ignoring one of the finest heatsinks on the market?
Unbelievable.
K0BALT
October 31, 2009 at 11:15am
My Ultra 120 TRUE Solid Copper edition will kill a Megahalem any time of day.
WFUJay
October 31, 2009 at 2:22pm
Benchmarks beg to differ fanboy.
From an article @ benchmarkreviews.com:
The Prolimatech Megahalems is the standout top-performer, with
a total adjusted temperature of 37.73°C over ambient. Nearly three
degrees away is the Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme and Xigmatek Thor's
Hammer S126384. All three of these coolers are phenomenal performers,
and deserve the title of Best CPU Cooler for the Intel Core i7 /
LGA1366 socket.
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=316&Itemid=62&limit=1&limitstart=7
n0ctis
November 01, 2009 at 10:36am
Who's the fanboy? You sound like a sales rep.
________________________________________________________________
.: vires et honos :.
WFUJay
November 01, 2009 at 11:46am
Not really, just irks me when magazines that I enjoy reading crown certain products the best in their class due to a lack of knowledge or just because they like the name brand.
Shouldn't they thouroughly test other worthy products before crowning an undeserving one the king?
I'm obviously not trying to sell anything, but it would be nice to see a great company that makes great products get the exposure that they need.
Unless MaxPC is in bed with Thermalright and doesn't want to see a company of ex-Thermalright employees get some recognition. :P
K0BALT
October 31, 2009 at 7:18pm
Well smartass... my Ultra 120 is the solid copper edition, (AS STATED BEFORE), ... which runs at least a 3C difference from the standard Ultra 120 in benchmarks.... Which technically, beats the Megahalem.... your move, sir.
WFUJay
November 01, 2009 at 12:02pm
It's pretty sad that the TRUE needs a super cool solid copper edition to keep up with the Megahalems in the first place.
My point was that a Megahalems outperforms a TRUE, which it does. And if these benchmarks are any indication, I'll take a wild guess and say that if Prolimatech (which is just a company of the best Thermalright engineers, who left Thermalright to begin with) made a solid copper edition of the Megahalems, it would outperform the solid copper edition of the TRUE. :D
EDIT: Upon further findings, your SUPER DANDY copper edition TRUE performs AT BEST 2 degrees cooler than the standerd TRUE, and only 1 degree cooler in most tests. In some tests they perform exactly the darned same.
"Evidently, no wonder happened. The solid-copper version of Thermalright’s super cooler is only 1~2°C more efficient than its aluminum counterpart. So, we can conclude that the copper giant doesn’t really demonstrate any serious advantage. Too bad, I really hoped to see at least 4°C improvement."
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/coolers/display/thermalright-true-copper-u120x_8.html#sect0
So yeah, your SUPER AWESOME copper edition still wouldn't outperform the Megahalems based on these findings. Unless you can come up with your own benchmarks to prove me wrong.
Looks like you lose.
Your move, smartass.
K0BALT
November 01, 2009 at 2:55pm
I see a 3C difference when using (2) Fans at 2000rpm like they did in this benchmark....which is what I'm using....
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/coolers/display/thermalright-true-copper-u120x_8.html#sect0
However, I'm not gonna argue with you. I WOULD like to see a Megahalem review just like you, but I'm not gonna spam random articles pissing and moaning until I get my way. Bitching like that when it has nothing to do with the article IS rather "fanboy"-ish, as you put it..... I also bet you're the guy that also calls people "Noobs" while you're "pwning" them, too. All fancy computer lingo aside...... I'll stick with my TRUE Copper that's keeping my CPU at 19C at this very moment.
K0BALT
October 30, 2009 at 6:56pm
not a biggie, but in the benchmarks results you have THERMALTAKE U120-Extreme listed instead of Thermalright.
graydiggy
October 30, 2009 at 6:17pm
look at the bottom of the page dude. it has the price listed at $44.99. attention to detail.
chrisbjax
October 31, 2009 at 3:15pm
Speaking of attention to detail, I think MaxPC needs to review their numbers.
They post in this review that the Thermalright U120-eXtreme at idle runs at 27.25c and 43.25c at 100% burn; yet in the Dec. 2009 issue of the magazine in the Scythe Mugen 2 Lab Test (Page 80), they posted the Thermalright U120-eXtreme benchmark at 29.75c idle and 45.25c at 100% burn..?
Either way the Thermaltake ISGC-300 still post scores lower then the Scythe. I know what i'm adding to my Christmas list this year. :-)
SEALBoy
October 30, 2009 at 4:47pm
Ok... seriously guys, would it KILL you to put the price in the article? Every review you guys publish says something about the price without ever ACTUALLY TELLING US THE PRICE.
mitpatterson
October 30, 2009 at 6:55pm
Look at the very bottom between the comments and the verdict, it shows prices. and they probaly don't list in in the actual article cause it can change, they use the price grabber thing so it auto updates
mitpatterson
SEALBoy
October 30, 2009 at 9:18pm
Interesting... I still can't see it. Tried a Ctrl+F search on the page and it still didn't show up. Must be something with my browser.
In any case, my apologies for the outburst. I still think it would be great to have the price listed in the article.
cappomutato
October 30, 2009 at 11:04pm
Good call. I disabled Ad Block and the pricing info popped up after a quick reload.
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