Hardware Bistro

Product: Baram 2010
Manufacturer: Thermolab
Supplied by: Thermolab
Price: 40USD/RM125
Launch Date: March 2010

 

Thermolab is a Korean thermal solution vendor and unlike other vendors they do not design and execute mass production but just fulfilling the market with adequate supply. Baram and Bada are two of their major products and have gained pretty good reputation worldwide. Today let us have a look on their Baram successor; Baram 2010 with additional dissipation area. 

 

Company Profile

Thermolab is a Korea company that focus on cooling products such as Nano Silencer, Macro Silencer and their latest Baram which is a heat pipe cooler used for CPU, designed in an optimal aerothermodynamics structure.

Thermolab started their business in year 2003 with their registered patent of slim type heat exchanger and reciprocate pump. As the following years, Thermolab has developed and produced such great products such as high efficient louver fin heatpipe cooler, Nano Silencer, Micro Silencer, TL5-H thermal grease, UMPC thermal solution and etc.

 

Features

-With the efficient heat pipe arrangement, maximized the thermal distribution effects.

-Optimum fin structure to minimize air resistance intaken.

-Optimized fin pitch for axial Fan

-The air tunnel formed inside the stack-heatsink fins accelerates the airflow

 

Specifications

Package & Content

 

Unlike Baram and Bada, Thermolab Baram 2010 comes with a much attractive packaging box; no more plain box. However Thermolab Baram 2010 is still packed in the same way where no foam is used. Since Thermolab Baram 2010 comes with copper base and heatpipes, a silicon gel is included to minimize the corrosion. All the accessories are being kept inside a plastic bag except the back plate.

 

The bundled accessories are universal back plate, smart clips, bolts for smart clip & heatsink, rubber pad, rubber O-rings, thermal grease, hand nuts, fan clips, screws and user's manual. All Thermolab Baram 2010 is the successor of Baram but its installation method has been improved where Baram 2010 is following the same design as Bada; a true universal back plate and smart clips.

 

A rubber pad is included for the back plate but it is not pre-installed as AMD and Intel platforms are having different way of installation. Two sets of fan clips and a quality thermal grease are included too.The bundled user's manual is a great guide to show the installation method step by step with illustrations.

 

A Closer Look on Thermolab Baram 2010

As we mentioned previously there are very limited products from Thermolab and in fact there are total 3 series with 6 models; Baram, Baram 2010, Bada, Bada 2010, Micro Silencer and Nano Silencer 2009. Among all these models, Thermolab Baram 2010 is the highest performance CPU cooler as Bada is meant for quiet cooling while silencer is meant for slim design.

Thermolab Baram 2010 comes with slightly heavier than Baram; 710 grams versus 625 grams but the physical dimension is still maintained at 67 x 132 x 160 mm (L x W x H). The additional 85 grams is due to the additional dissipation area @ 8900 cm2 where Baram is only having 7580 cm2. Nevertheless in term of physical layout, it is still hardly to distinguish them unless they are being placed side by side.

If you pay attention on Thermolab Baram 2010 then you may find that its aluminum fins are come in wave shape. Such design will help in term of heat dissipation and noise reduction in ideal case. These aluminum fins are in optimum fin structure for reducing the air resistance in taken and air tunnel is formed inside the stacked heatsink fins to accelerate the airflow.

 

The Thermolab Baram 2010's copper heatpipes are naked without any nickel chromed which has lower corrosion resistance. All these five 60mm heatpipes are arranged in special sequence with better efficiency for maximizing the thermal distribution effect. There will be a notch at the end of every fins for mounting the cooling fan on the Thermolab Baram 2010 with fan clips.

 

Here is the Thermolab Baram 2010's base where it does not come with nickel chromed anymore like what Baram is having; cost reduction or better performance? Since the copper base is exposed to the air hence it will be expected to play more attention when come to maintaining the Thermolab Baram compare with pure aluminum or nickel-chromed copper base. 

 

The Thermolab Baram 2010's copper base is still equipped with smooth surface and its mounting method has been improved by using four smart clips rather than two long clips. There are total five 60mm heatpipes on Thermolab Baram 2010 in U-shaped position which is the common structuring for a tower cooler and it allows bidirectional flowing too. 

 

Thermolab Baram 2010 is a bare CPU cooler where no cooling fan is bundled at default. If you would like to use your own fans then such arrangement should suit you the most as it is quite rare to have a bare CPU cooler in the market lately. Dual 120mm cooling fan is the ideal setup for Thermolab Baram 2010 but user always has the choice for only having a single 120mm fan.

 

Installation, Testing & Performance

 

Thermolab Baram 2010 is a universal CPU cooler so its installation method is not as straightforward as other stock coolers. Firstly the four smart clips have to be installed on the Thermolab Baram 2010's base but this must be done correctly as there are too many ways/combinations to install them. Next step is fixing the rubber pad on the back plate so that the motherboard will not be damaged by it.

 

There are two ways to mount the back plate on the motherboard so please ensure the right direction is being positioned. If everything is setup correctly then it is time to slightly secure the back plate on the motherboard with four set of screws, rubber O-rings before fastening them with the Thermolab Baram 2010. The rubber O-rings are also doing the same function as the rubber pad to avoid over force during installation.

 

The following step will be mounting the Thermolab Baram 2010 on the motherboard with four hand nuts but we prefer additional Philips screw thread is added on these hand nuts so that the this step can be further simplified. Mounting the cooling fan on Thermolab Baram 2010 will be the last step and this can't be done earlier as it will block the hand nuts installation. It is not really hard to mount the fan clips on Thermolab Baram 2010 but this can be further improved as there are much easier installation method available in the market right now. 

Thermolab Baram 2010 is not really a width CPU cooler so it still allows users to do all these installation within the chassis but it will be better to do it outside-the-box. Overall we are still quite satisfied with the installation method of Thermolab Baram 2010; neither too complicated nor too easy. Besides that we don't foresee any compatible issue with Thermolab Baram 2010 for most of the setup. 

 

Test Bed

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8300 @ 2.83GHz
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3/Gigabyte G31M-ES2L
Heatsink: Thermolab Baram 2010
Memory: Kingston HyperX 4GB DDR2 8500
Hard Drive: 250GB 7200RPM 8MB Seagate
Graphic Card: Galaxy GeForce GTX260+
Casing: In Win Maelstorm
PSU: Aerocool V12XT-800
Optical Drive: HLDS DVD RW +/-
Controller: Aerocool Touch 2000
Monitor: Dell 22" Wide Screen LCD
Speaker: Edifier R501
Mouse: SteelSeries Ikari Laser
Mouse Pad: SteelSeries QcK+
HeadSet: SteelSeries 3H
Router: TRENDnet TEW-639GR
Operating System: Window XP Pro SP2/Win 7 HP
Ambient Temperature: 27 Degree Celsius

For the testing of Thermolab Baram 2010, we have selected two decent CFM fans to test out its ability; same fans as our previous Baram review. As you can see Thermolab Baram 2010 comes with decent performance where its performance is pretty close to NH-D14; a much giant tower CPU cooler. The results for Baram 2010 and Baram in our reviews may look the same but in fact Thermolab Baram 2010 did perform better than its predecessor as there are some hardware changes on our setup where it has directly impact the results. Thermolab Baram 2010's performance looks promising although its noise is higher than other decent CPU coolers but this can be further fine tuned with a simple fan speed controller or maybe lower noise fans is used. 

 

Verdicts

Once again Thermolab has proven their ability to design and produce an outstanding CPU cooler with decent performance and attractive price to compete those worldwide top CPU coolers side by side. However there are always room for improvement and hopefully we will see a better version in the future to make it more user friendly and maintenance-free; Baram 2011 or Baram 2012? Thermolab Baram 2010 is priced at 40USD which is really not a bad deal especially if you already own a pair of great cooling fans.

 

Pros:

+ Universal CPU cooler
+ Unique design with decent performance
+ Five copper heatpipes
+ Support dual 120mm fans
+ Attractive price
+ Thermal grease is included
+ Two pairs of fan clips are included

Cons:

- Fan clip can be further improved
- Low corrosive resistance
- Fan is not pre-bundled

 

 

Thanks to Thermolab for providing this sample for us to review.

 

 

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