Thermaltake Jing Silent CPU Cooler Review

[Apoptosis]

Thermaltake Jing Silent CPU Cooler Review

Today we are taking a look at the Thermaltake Jing silent CPU cooler. The Jing is a dual 120mm fan tower cooler with being quiet and performing well as its goal. Join us as we stack the Jing up against several coolers on our Intel Core i7 test bench and also see how quiet the Jing is compared to the kings of quiet, Noctua.

Thermaltake set out to find a balance of performance and silence for the design of the Jing. On the quiet side of the equation they hit the nail on the head. On low I could not hear the fans outside of the case; I even unplugged my case fans to see if I could hear it. On high I could not distinguish it from my case fans. On the performance side it was performing on par with other coolers in its price range of $55-$65 with our system at stock settings and with the mild overclock, and outperformed the stock Intel HSF by a solid 20 degrees.

Article Title: Thermaltake Jing Silent CPU Cooler Review
Article URL: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1589/1/
Pricing at Time of Print: $59.99 plus shipping

[Major_A]

The fan blades look like the Styrofoam blades on personal coolers. If you stick your finger in there all it does is stop the fan, not nicks or cuts.
http://www.cheekychicago.com/wp-content ... beener.jpg

[bubba]

They are quiet solid, sting a little too. Got my finger in one while reaching in to adjust one of the speed controls, promptly re-routed the wires

[Major_A]

Did that once with a Delta 80MM running at full tilt. That hurt like hell for a few days.

[Apoptosis]

i've stuck my finger in a fair number of fans... Yes, I did it on a delta before and yeah it bled from multiple fan strikes. LOL

[Major_A]

Yeah I've done it a handful of times too. Only the Delta has caused a healthy fear of watching where my fingers are going.

[DragonFury]

you have not experienced the true art of overclocking until you stuck your fingers in areas they not supposed to be. I like many of us "lunatics" stuck my fingers in fan blades too, some slow spinning ones, and some rather high speed ones, like the Vantec Tornado 80 mm and 92mm fans. the current score is, Fans = many, Dragon 4.

[Major_A]

Funny how things have changed in a relatively short period of time. People, including overclockers want their rigs quiet. Just a few years ago people were running Sunon Deltas/Vantec Tornadoes to keep their rigs cool. I guess it's more impressive that there are fans out there that are quiet and still move the air.

I wish Thermaltake was the Thermaltake of 5-6 years ago. Man they were experimenting with all kinds of stuff. Now their product line just seems stagnant. I am glad to see that with this cooler they are moving back in the right direction.

[Kaos Kid]

I liked the closeup of the nickel-plated base, it shows a lot of dimples. Depending on the thickness of the plating, would you suggest lapping this? If so, it could move from the "fine for mild overclock" category to "don't be afraid to rev it up a little".

[bubba]

Not sure how it would react to being lapped.

[Tator Tot]

Not sure how it would react to being lapped.

If the CPU and the Cooler were both lapped to a "razorblade perfect" flat, then you should see a good decrease in temps by 3-5*C. Only because the surface area of contact between metal and metal is now much more uniform and you'll need less TIM.

What most people don't realize is that lapping both surfaces is normally required to get good results from it. Only doing the heatsink or the CPU IHS won't nearly be as noticeable and is usually chalked into a 1-3*C range.

[Kaos Kid]

The way the dimples are on that surface though I don't know if there is enough plating to make it mirror perfect. Do it wrong and you wear the plating too thin. I think that lapping the heatsink would have to depend on how thick the plating is. Then, you also have to wonder why the dimples are so big--Is that a thin plating over a very rough heatsink base, or an average HS base with so-so plating, etc...?

Bubba, get out your micro-micro-micrometer and tell us how many hairs' thickness that is!

j/k of course, thanks again Bubba for the great review and Double-T for the input on lapping. I can't believe I used to do that on my old nforce boards, now carpal tunnel and laziness keeps me wondering "what if?"...

[Tator Tot]

I'd say the dimples are probably do to a so-so plating job.

[bubba]

I have micrometers, but nothing that will measure the waviness. Like I said in the article, it feels flat, just the plating setup funky.

as for the plating being thick enough, if you lap it that will go away completely, it lapped right. Nickle and Chrome plate is only a few thousandths of an inch thick to begin with. A sheet of normal run of the mill photocopy paper is .003" thick.

[Kaos Kid]

I have micrometers, but nothing that will measure the waviness. Like I said in the article, it feels flat, just the plating setup funky.

as for the plating being thick enough, if you lap it that will go away completely, it lapped right. Nickle and Chrome plate is only a few thousandths of an inch thick to begin with. A sheet of normal run of the mill photocopy paper is .003" thick.

I was kidding of course I was trying to convey an image of you having to use tweezers just to hold a micro-micro-microtool small enough to measure something even smaller than the thickness of paper. (Get that pesky electron outta the way, its fudging the measurements!)

yu da man, bubba

[bubba]

Oh, a micrometer can measure paper (and smaller). Hard part is having one with tips small enough to only touch one dimple

[Kaos Kid]

Oh, a micrometer can measure paper (and smaller). Hard part is having one with tips small enough to only touch one dimple

taken out of context, that sounds nasty!