Danamics lmx superleggera cpu cooler: Danamics LMX Superleggera Cooler Review

Danamics LMX Superleggera Cooler Review

Manufacturer:Danamics
UK price (as reviewed):£98.99 (inc VAT)
US price (as reviewed): N/A

The humble heat pipe has for years been the backbone of aftermarket coolers for several years, serving as a more expensive, but often vastly more efficient way to cool your hardware than the block of metal design favoured by simple stock coolers. While the size and efficiency of heatpipes has improved over time, their core concept has remained unchanged. A sealed tube is filled with fluid that vaporises as it absorbs heat before releasing its heat and condensing back into a fluid at the other end of the heatpipe.

The Danamics LMX Superleggera takes a completely different and novel approach to the problem though and is the first cooler to utilise a liquid metal cooling system; yes, that’s right, just like in Terminator 2.

Click to enlarge

The cooler itself is still a fairly typical tower heatsink though, and on the face of things doesn’t look too dissimilar from coolers such as the Zalman CNPS10X Flex. An array of fairly loosely spaced aluminium cooling fins is built around five pipes that each runs the length of the fin stack and through an aluminium CPU contact plate at its base.

The big difference here is the pipes aren’t filled with vaporising fluid, but a sodium-potassium alloy, connecting to a liquid metal reservoir in the roof of the cooler and forming a continuous circuit inside the cooler. The liquid metal is then circulated through the loop via a neodymium electromagnetic pump — layout wise, it’s similar in theory to a basic water cooling loop. Coolant is pushed down to the base, absorbs heat and is then pumped up and down the fin stack releasing heat before again passing through the copper block mounted above the CPU.

The liquid metal used is much more thermally conductive than water, theoretically leading to superior performance over heatpipes. With all this electromagnetism going on though you’d be forgiven for being a little worried about having it around the delicate electronics inside your PC; after all, there are consumer electronics electro-magnetic interference regulations for a reason. Danamics has gotten around this problem though by fitting the LMX with ironcore shielding around the pump at the top of the cooler to cut the EM radiation to a safe level, although this does add to the weight of the LMX.

Click to enlarge — The LMX requires a 3.5in power adapter to drive the EM pump

The increased power needs of the cooler also means it requires its own power delivery hardware, with the cooler’s EM pump connecting to a 3.5in power booster that will fit in any conventional 3.5in hard drive mount. Powered by a single 4-pin Molex connector this box contains a meaty transformer as well as status indicator lights for the EM pump.

While we’re excited by the potential of a new cooling technology the Danamics LMX Superleggera certainly has some significant downsides too. The LMX is one of the largest air coolers we’ve ever seen, measuring a huge 158.2mm (w) x 170.5mm (h) x 90mm (d) and weighing a very hefty 1180g. This not only means that the LMX may struggle to fit inside even fairly roomy cases, but it’ll also be putting a significant strain on your motherboard even with the back plate mounts that Danamics ships the cooler with.

Click to enlarge — There’s a seperate bracket for each CPU socket, although the LMX is only sold with either AMD or Intel fittings.

Despite the large size of the cooler installation is a mostly pain free process, with each CPU socket treated to its own backplate and retention bracket. Metal mounting arms screw down onto the different backplates to provide a platform for the differing retention brackets which hold the cooler in place. However, the choice of plastic as a material for these brackets is a little odd as even high quality plastic tends to give a little under pressure, say from a 1KG+ CPU cooler at 90° to your motherboard. Why not use metal brackets considering all the other mounting gear is?

There is one master stroke here though and it’s with the LMX’s dual 120mm fan mounts. There’s one on each side of the cooler, allowing for a push/pull setup but brilliantly, they’re slot loading. Fans are held in place by running grooves and then secured by small clips at the top, making it incredibly simple to install or swap out cooling fans even in a fully built system. Danamics doesn’t ship the LMX with any kind of cooling fan out of the box though, so you’ll have to provide your own, but we really hope the fan mounting system is picked up on by competitors – it’s superb.

Specifications

Compatibility: Intel version: LGA775, LGA1156, LGA1366; AMD version Socket AM2/AM2+/AM3
Weight: 1,180g
Size (mm): 158.2 x 170.5 x 90 (W x D x H)
Fan: None included
Stated noise: N/A

1 — Danamics LMX Superleggera Review2 — Danamics Testing and Results3 — Danamics Results Analysis and Conclusion

Danamics LMX Superleggera Cooler Review

Written by

Harry Butler

May 14, 2010 | 08:15

Tags: #lga1156-cooler #lga1366-cooler #liquid-metal #socket-am23-cooler

Companies: #danamics

1 — Danamics LMX Superleggera Review2 — Danamics Testing and Results3 — Danamics Results Analysis and Conclusion

We’ve included results from several CPU coolers in each test. Not all are present in all socket tests because some aren’t compatible. In this case we’ve tried to include a similar cooler from that particular company, such as the Noctua NH-C12P which is compatible with LGA 775 and Socket AM2+, but not with LGA1366. In this case we’ve used Noctua’s NH-U12P SE 1366.

Where CPU coolers had alternative fan speeds, we’ve tested at both the lowest and highest fan speed settings and recorded idle and load delta T results for each setting to give you some idea as to how much performance is affected.

We’ve also included the reference cooler for each socket which is a good indicator of what kind of improvement you’d see when upgrading. For instance, you certainly wouldn’t want to buy a third-party cooler that performs worse than the reference cooler.

Delta T is the difference in °C between the ambient temperature and the recorded temperature of the hardware, in this case the CPU. We used Core Temp 0.99.4 to take temperature readings of the CPU from the Digital Thermal Sensor (DTS) embedded in the core of every modern CPU, at idle and under load while using the smallfft test in Prime95.

A multimeter thermal attachment probe was used to take the ambient air temperature three inches away from the case’s primary intake location. The delta T is a more accurate and comparable method of recording temperature because the ambient room temperature of our test lab fluctuates from day to day.

For Socket AM2+ we used a 3GHz AMD Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition overclocked to 3.6GHz with the vcore boosted to 1.6V. Our LGA1156 rig is built around an Intel Core i7-870 overclocked to 3.6GHz with a vcore 1.35V. Finally, the LGA1366 test rig results were obtained from our new thermal test rig, which uses a Biostar Tpower X58A motherboard, and an Intel Core i7-965 overclocked to 3.6GHz ( 27×133) at 1.3Vcore.

Danamics LMX Superleggera (2x120mm fans)
Titan Fenrir TTC-NK85TZ (high speed)
Thermalright Ultra 120 eXtreme1366 RT
Akasa Nero S
Titan Fenrir TTC-NK85TZ (low speed)
Gelid Tranquillo
Zalman CNPS10X Flex (one quiet fan)
Thermalright Venomous-X (1x120mm fan)
Intel reference cooler

- 15
- 48
- 16
- 49
- 17
- 49
- 14
- 50
- 17
- 51
- 19
- 55
- 17
- 56
- 19
- 56
- 24
- 74

Temperature (°C)

Idle
Load

Titan Fenrir Xmas Edition (high speed)
Zalman CNPS 10X Quiet (high speed)
Akasa Nero S
Danamics LMX Superleggera (2x120mm fans)
Titan Fenrir Xmas Edition (low speed)
Thermalright Venomous-X (1x120mm fan)
Zalman CNPS10X Flex (one quiet fan)
Gelid Tranquillo
Intel reference cooler

- 8
- 30
- 10
- 31
- 9
- 37
- 11
- 38
- 11
- 38
- 15
- 38
- 12
- 40
- 14
- 40
- 23
- 71

delta T (°C) (lower is betterl)

Idle
Load

Titan Fenrir TTC-NK85TZ (high speed)
Noctua NH-C12P (high speed)
Titan Fenrir TTC-NK85TZ (low speed)
OCZ Vendetta 2
Gelid Tranquillo
Cooler Master V8 (high speed)
Akasa Nero S
Danamics LMX Superleggera (2x120mm fans)
AMD reference cooler
Zalman CNPS10X Flex (one quiet fan)

- 14
- 35
- 15
- 37
- 15
- 37
- 15
- 37
- 16
- 38
- 16
- 39
- 14
- 40
- 18
- 42
- 25
- 46
- 17
- 48

delta T (°C) (lower is better)

Idle
Load

Read our results analysis

1 — Danamics LMX Superleggera Review2 — Danamics Testing and Results3 — Danamics Results Analysis and Conclusion

Danamics LMX Superleggera.

Trouble in the Kingdom of Denmark

12 years ago

All modern high-efficiency air-cooling systems are based on heat pipes. Although many have tried to challenge the mainstream in their time. For example, the minds of cooler engineers have long been worried about the idea of using a closed loop instead of heat pipes in CO with an effective coolant, for example, liquid metal circulating inside under the action of an electromagnetic field. Back in 2005, we saw a prototype of the Sapphire Radeon X850 video card equipped with such a cooler.

In fact, a circuit with liquid metal differs little from a conventional CBO. In it, too, through the tubes between the heat sink and the radiator, taking heat in one place and giving it away in another, the coolant circulates. Only the latter is not water, but liquid metal; and it is not the impeller of a conventional pump that sets it in motion, but an electromagnet paired with the Lorentz effect (smile). The advantages of such a solution are obvious: due to the absence of moving parts, the pump becomes silent (in SVO it is often the most difficult thing to get rid of its buzz). Yes, and the heat capacity of the metal is higher than that of water by an order of magnitude (for example, it is 65 times greater for sodium, which is used for these purposes in the nuclear power industry).

«If everything is so great, then why is the market not only not littered with such coolers, but there are none at all?» — you ask. It’s all about price. In the already mentioned nuclear power industry or the aerospace industry, where cooling systems with liquid metal are mainly used, this question, of course, does not arise at all. In the consumer sector, every dollar has to be saved.

One way or another, mass-produced liquid-metal coolers saw the light only in 2007, when the Danish company Danamics, created shortly before, presented its first product, the LM10 processor cooler. It cost €350 (like a good CBO), but showed rather average efficiency and did not win much recognition from overclockers. Despite this, the company did not give up, and a little over a year later a more productive model was released, called the LMX. She also fell in price twice — to € 170 (that is, she no longer competed with serious dropsies (smile)). But the best supercoolers were still more efficient and cheaper.

And at the turn of 2009 and 2010, the manufacturer made a third attempt to conquer the top segment of air COs. The light version of the LMX, called Superleggera, was supposed to win the hearts of overclockers (apparently, Danamics marketers were inspired by the Lamborghini Gallardo supercar, one of the exclusive modifications of which bears just such a name). True, the cooler’s delivery package became easier — for its €100, the user received only one mount: for Intel LGA 775, or LGA 1155 / 1166, or for LGA 1366, or AMD AM2 / AM3 — to choose from. And the cooler itself weighed almost 1.2 kg.

Why do I always write about him in the past tense? It’s just that at the end of last year, Danamics finally had to admit defeat and stop producing liquid metal coolers. But for what reasons this happened, whether the niche turned out to be too narrow or due to the fact that even in the third generation the product did not get rid of childhood diseases and could not compete with conventional coolers, the big question is.

And now the legend is in my hands. Yes, at least the packaging of CO Danamics LMX Superleggera commands respect: the cooler is housed in two large boxes fastened with a plastic dust jacket. One contains the cooler itself and the selected mounting kit, and the second hides the Danamics Power Booster 2 power supply for its electromagnetic pump — the computer PSU produces only direct current, while it needs alternating current. Probably, it was possible to power the pump from another outlet (and what, many «plumbers» use aquarium pumps that connect to a common electrical network), but the manufacturer chose the option with a separate power supply. It occupies a three-inch compartment of the case. Moreover, in the front part of the feeder there is a radiator, which heats up seriously during operation — it is better to bring it outside the case.

… a liquid metal circuit differs little from a conventional CBO. It also circulates coolant through the tubes between the heat sink and the radiator.

The cooler mount with a crosspiece that is screwed to the back of the motherboard also looks solid. And from his face he is pressed to the last by a heavy steel plate. And of course, no plastic clips — everywhere only strong steel screws. When looking at the LMX Superleggera itself, at first it also seems that it has everything to demonstrate excellent efficiency. Two transparent 120 mm fans are responsible for blowing the radiator.

However, under a solid plastic casing hides not the most accurate electromagnetic pump. But the appearance of this device is just unimportant — the main thing is that it be quiet (this, fortunately, it is) and provide a sufficient circulation rate of liquid metal through the local five round channels. Like most heat pipes, the existing copper ones, six millimeters in diameter, are laid in neat grooves at the base of the radiator and soldered — all this together should ensure high-quality heat dissipation from the sole. And in order to evenly heat the radiator fins, the Danamics LMX Superleggera tubes in the upper part, on the contrary, diverge, gathering again only at the very top, where the pump is located.

But the details are not so good. For example, the thickness of the copper sole under the tubes is not the standard 1-3 mm, but a good centimeter. Yes, and it is not processed perfectly, it is far from a mirror state. And most importantly — the sole is uneven: there is a noticeable bulge in the center. Aluminum ribs are not only not soldered to the tubes, but in general they are almost not attached. At the same time, due to the massive pump on top, the number of these half-millimeter thick plates, spaced at 2.0 mm intervals, had to be limited to 42 pieces. As a result, the total dissipation area of the radiator does not exceed 7000 cm2. For a cooler that claims to be the leader among air cooling systems (at least in terms of price), this is now far from being an outstanding value. Leaders in this indicator, like the Noctua NH-D14 and Thermalright Silver Arrow, boast almost twice the usable area.

However, testing will put everything in its place. Installing the cooler does not cause any problems. As usual, I tested the LMX Superleggera on an Intel Core i7 920 CPU with a 1366-pin socket. To complicate the task of the cooler, the processor was overclocked from the standard 2.66 to 4.00 GHz and warmed up using the Linpack package (LinX shell, 64-bit). The Danamics fans (manufactured by SilenX) are equipped with unusual amber lighting, and they make the cooler look great when running. But not every ear can withstand their noise at the standard 2000 rpm (there is no way to adjust their rotation speed), so the device was tested in other modes — at 1000 and 1500 rpm of its turntables.

And in general, it showed a good result, coping with the cooling of the overclocked hot quad-core even in the quietest mode. But the best LMX Superleggera supercoolers are still far away. So, from the mentioned Silver Arrow, which was tested with the same hundred and twenty, it lagged behind at least 10 ° in all modes. At the same time, Thermalright’s flagship is noticeably cheaper.
Unfortunately, even on the third attempt (and during the three years of its activity) Danamics failed to make a truly competitive product. The attempt to reduce the cost, and this is exactly what the company has been doing all the time of its existence, has almost succeeded. The price of LMX Superleggera has approached the prices of top air coolers. And if SO were ahead of them in terms of efficiency, it would definitely find its buyer. But, unfortunately, the Danes could not bring the product to mind. U.P.

Device: Danamics LMX Superleggera
Type: CPU cooler
Compatible: LGA 775 / 1156 / 1366, AMD AM2 / AM3
Fans: 2 x 120 mm
Fan speed: 2000 rpm
Dimensions: 158 x 90 x 170 mm
Weight: 1180 g

How to choose a CPU cooler? | Game components

Even in May, summer heat can happen. Spring chills come and go, but computer users should always be mindful of proper cooling. Desktop processors have come a long way from 4- to 8-, 10- and now 16-core models. 5GHz chips with over 200W TDP are commonplace and present a real challenge for users who want to get the best out of their PC.

MAG CORELIQUID 240R V2 WHITE

Of the two types of CPU coolers — air and water — the latter seems to be more popular due to higher efficiency. However, there really isn’t much difference between the two, and the choice depends on your needs. In this article, we will describe the differences between them and give some tips on how to use them.

Air-cooled is simple: heat is transferred from the base of the cooler to the heatsink, which is blown by fans. Thus, the effectiveness of the air cooler depends on the presence of a base that absorbs heat well. Usually it is made of pure copper — a material with optimal heat absorption and thermal conductivity.

The base of the air cooler is usually made from a single piece of pure copper, but in some cases direct heat pipe contact technology is used — it was very popular between 2007 and 2012. At that time, it was believed that the contact between the base and the heat pipe was not ideal due to the limitations of the manufacturing process, which entailed certain losses in terms of thermal conductivity. To reduce these losses, the heatpipe was placed in direct contact with the top surface of the processor. This idea was very popular at that time and was put into practice by many manufacturers of air coolers.

However, it was then noticed that direct contact with the heat pipe had its drawbacks. The principle of operation of a heat pipe is similar to that of a vacuum cleaner, but it has a limited thickness, which gives rise to two main problems. First, the heatpipe must be made flat to fit to the processor. This reduces its strength. Over time, it can deform, and this will lead to poor contact between the processor and the heatsink, which will affect the overall efficiency of the cooler. Secondly, the processors differ from each other, including the location of the most hot spots. Processors with a large surface area may be completely covered by the base of the cooler, but the heat pipe may not be in the exact place where the processor is the hottest. If the base is made of pure copper, this problem simply does not exist. This is why most of today’s mid-range and high-end air coolers have reverted to using all-copper bases.

From the base of the cooler, heat is transferred to the heatsink fins via heatpipes, also made of pure copper. The efficiency of heat transfer here is influenced by many factors, including how exactly the contact between the radiator and the tube is implemented. It is believed that reflow soldering is the best option, but it all depends on the specific implementation.

Next — the design of heat pipes. Heat transfer will depend on their number and thickness. Mid-range coolers typically use six tubes, while flagship models use seven or eight. The more tubes, the better the heat transfer. The method of bending and the relative position of the tubes in the cooler are also important.

The last step in air cooling is to dissipate heat from the heatsink using a fan. The performance of a fan depends on the speed of rotation and the design of its blades. Some fans are silenced and therefore spin slowly, producing low airflow, while others aim for high air pressure. In the latter case, they blow through the entire radiator from the front, and an additional exhaust fan can be installed behind the radiator, if necessary. In general, the purpose of the fan is to remove heat from the fins of the heatsink, which ultimately reduces the temperature of the processor.

For air cooling to be effective, the heat dissipation area must be large. That’s why many mid-range and high-end air coolers are large single «towers» or even a pair of such «towers» together with 14 cm fans. Apparently, their design has reached its limit. The main reason is that the size of the radiator is limited by the width of the computer case, the cooling elements of the motherboard and the size of the video card. In the near future, major air cooler manufacturers will be looking to answer the question of how best to increase the performance of their devices in tight spaces.

MEG CORELIQUID S360

The heat generated by the CPU is transferred to the waterblock via the copper base.

The coolant then transfers heat from the CPU water block to the heatsink through the connecting pipes, and the heatsink is blown by fans. The main advantage of water-cooled systems is that the refrigerant has a high heat capacity. Combined with a large heat dissipation area, this results in better efficiency than air coolers.

In general, the thermal conductivity of a liquid refrigerant is about four times that of air, and the liquid flow is able to move heat very quickly. Above, we mentioned the problem of air coolers related to heat dissipation. The CBO uses larger radiators (240, 280 or 360mm) because their size is not limited by the limits that are set for air coolers. As a result, heat dissipation is more efficient. Of course, if the CBO included only a 120mm radiator, its performance would be worse than that of a mid-range air cooler.

As we noted above, both air and water cooling systems have their pros and cons. The advantage of an air cooler is its durability. The disadvantage is that it takes up a lot of space, and it can block access to memory modules, a video card, and M.2 slots. Heat dissipation is not as good as CBO. As for unattended and serviced CBOs, these two water cooling options are designed for different users and serve different purposes. We’ll take a closer look at this shortly.

As noted above, in a water cooling system, heat is removed from the processor using a liquid coolant. The refrigerant has a high heat capacity and, if allowed to cool, guarantees excellent heat dissipation. This principle is the basis of any CBO, and the main difference between unattended and serviced CBOs is the architecture.

Air coolers are back in fashion thanks to heat pipes

The opinion that water cooling systems will completely replace air coolers has existed for many years. Air coolers were finding it increasingly difficult to keep up with the ever-increasing core count and speed of processors. At first, the solution was to use a pure copper heatsink. The thermal conductivity of copper is much higher than that of aluminum, so a combination of a copper radiator and a fan became the main one at that time. However, pure copper has a drawback — a lot of weight.

However, the performance of air coolers soon increased significantly due to improvements in heat pipe technology. Its essence lies in the fact that the liquid refrigerant turns into vapor at the «hot» end of the tube and moves to its other end, where it condenses. As it cools, it re-liquids and flows back to the «hot» end, and the cycle repeats. The efficiency of a heat pipe is so high that almost all quality heatsinks on the market use this technology, and the performance of a cooler is related (though not entirely directly) to the number of pipes it contains.

In a situation where the most popular are quad-core processors with a clock speed below 3GHz and without significant overclocking, power consumption and heat dissipation do not reach serious values. In this case, air coolers with heat pipes cope with a bang. That is why the mass segment has not yet fully appreciated the advantages of water coolers. However, in recent years, the demand for them has been constantly growing — along with an increase in performance, the number of cores and the clock frequency of processors.

Open Loop CBO

Having looked at the development and evolution of air and water coolers, let’s now return to the question of the difference between two types of water coolers: unattended and open loop. Open Loop CBO, as the name implies, consists of individual components that can be combined together without restriction. The main ones are the water block, reservoir, pump, radiator, fans, fittings, connecting pipes and cooler. Sometimes the tank and pump are made as a single unit. Some brands offer all these components together, making them easier to match. However, no one bothers users to freely select and combine their own components. In addition to the tank, pump, water block and radiator, they can purchase valves, connection blocks, water flow sensors, a thermometer, etc.

After connecting all the components to each other, care must be taken that everything is held firmly, the tubes do not come off and do not leak. This may require a pump stand and some other accessories. Before starting the system, it must be filled with refrigerant, various performance checks must be carried out. After all, if the CBO starts to leak when the computer is on, the danger will threaten the motherboard, the video card, and even the drives.

Flexible and rigid tubes

Tubing connecting open circuit CBO components can be soft or hard. Soft ones are usually made from PVC, polyurethane and similar materials. Their advantage is that they are flexible and bend easily. Rigid tubes are made from PETG, acrylic, etc. When using them, you need to think in advance about the location of the CBO components and purchase the appropriate corners. Rigid tubes look prettier and can be accompanied by matching accessories such as water flow sensors or water tanks. However, the installation of all this will be more complicated, as a rule, it is carried out by professionals. Soft tubes are easier to handle, so most users can handle them on their own.

Maintenance-free CBOs

Having become familiar with open circuit water cooling systems, let’s now discuss maintenance-free CBOs. Their installation is facilitated by the modular design of the water block and radiator. The first generation of them came on the market around 2011, and over the years they have improved so that now the most popular design is the version with a pump built into the water block. In fact, the user only needs to install a fan on the radiator and then place the entire system in the PC case. This is the main advantage of a maintenance-free CBO — the installation procedure is very simple.

Maintenance-free water pumps have two water pump designs. The first one is represented by the MAG CORELIQUID C360/P360 models: the pump is fixed on the radiator. This somewhat affects the compactness and performance of the system, but the water block is free from vibration, which reduces the risk of leaks, and the water block itself can be made thinner.

Another design option for a maintenance-free water cooler is to build a water pump into the water block. This solution is used in coolers from Asetek. At the same time, the SVO becomes more compact and efficient.

To expand the functionality of such systems beyond the actual cooling, the new generation of them has various additions, such as addressable backlight and LCD screens.

The example shown above is MEG CORELIQUID S360. The water block of this system is equipped with a 2.4-inch IPS display, which can be used to display GIF images or hardware monitoring data (CPU frequency, temperature, etc.). In addition, it has a 6-cm fan, which is designed to cool the power elements of the motherboard.

Conclusions: choosing between performance and convenience

The main advantage of an open circuit CBO is its long length. This increases the amount of refrigerant and the efficiency of its cooling. The diameter of the tubes can reach 14 mm or more.