Hardware Bistro

Product: NQ3350A
Manufacturer: NorthQ
Supplied by: NorthQ
Price: 31USD/RM112
Launch Date: Oct 2008

Looking for a CPU cooler to keep your system for better stability or to overclock further? NorthQ just released two new CPU coolers in Oct; 3350A and 3360A. Basically both of them are identical, just one is 92mm cooler while the another one is 120mm. We'll look into the 92mm version today; 3350A which is made by 3 extreme 8mm copper U-heat pipes with direct contact with the CPU.

 

Company Profile

NorthQ is a Denmark company that produces computer peripheral products like air cooling cooler, watercooling, power supply, casing and so on. Some of NorthQ famous products like Siberian Tiger I/II water cooling system, Green Line PSU which approved by Elsparefonden

 

Features:

- A new generation of high efficient CPU coolers
- The design combines 3 Extreme 8mm copper U-Heat pipes
- Direct contact on the CPU for optimal heat transfer
- A large number of thin aluminum fins for perfect airflow
- The cooler is originally fitted with 1 x 92mm black fan
- Multi clip system enables easy installation on sockets: LGA775, AMD K8/754/939/940/AM2
- Equipped with a build-in alarm function in the fan controller that indicates if the fan stops spinning during operation.
- Optimized for extreme performance gamer systems.

 

Package:

- Blister package

Specifications:

- Dimension: 102mm x 88mm x 125mm (L x W x H)
- Fan Dimension: 92 x 92 x 25 mm
- Bearing: Hydromatic ball bearing
- Rated Voltage: 12V
- Rated Current: 0.13A (Max)
- Thermal Resistance: 0.12 (C/W)
- Fan Speed: 1200 - 2200 RPM +/- 10%
- Noise: 12 - 21dB +/- 10%
- Air Flow: 22.4 - 40.3 CFM
- Life Time: 30,000 Hours
- Connector: 3 Pin
- Fan controller with build-in FAN alarm included
- Weight: 460 g

AMD:
Sempron 3500+ or higher
Athlon 64 5000+ or higher
Athlon 64 x2 6000+ or higher
Athlon FX62
Opteron 2,6GHz or higher
Phenom 2.4GHz or higher

Intel:
Core 2 Duo / Core 2 Quad 3.16GHz or higher
Pentium(64) 3,6GHz or higher
Pentium D 3.6GHz or higher
Pentium 4 3.8GHz or higher
Celeron 3.33GHz or higher

 

Packaging

 

NorthQ 3350A comes with a black rectangular box. Some specification of this cooler are stated at the back of the packaging and this cooler also called as Max Tower by NorthQ. After open up the box, all the accessories are placed on the NorthQ 3350A cooler without kept inside any accessories box which doesn't really neat but this is not so important as long as the accessories arrives safely.

 

The NorthQ 3350A cooler and the fan are packed with a plastic box to protect them. Besides the cooler and fan, the rest of the accessories are user manual, thermal compound, Velcro strip, fan speed controller with a cable, bracket for Intel LGA775 system, four buckles and two springs.

 

The user manual shows the package contents, fan installation, and cooler installation on both AMD and Intel systems. The user manual is simple so end users shouldn't have a hard time to understand them. The bracket and four buckles are only for Intel platforms and the two springs are used to install the fan on the cooler.

 

 

NorthQ 3350A

3350A isn't the only one new cooler that NorthQ released recently as NorthQ did have another version of this 3350A which is 120mm version; 3360A. Picture above shows the exact size differentia between them. NorthQ 3360A is an extremely giant heatsink which may not suitable for everyone so NorthQ 3350A is another choice for users.

 

NorthQ 3350A is a tall vertical cooler where the fan will blow the heatsink horizontally. With this, the heat pipes are playing an important role to ensure the heat is transferred effectively to aluminum fins. NorthQ 3350A is made by three extreme 8mm copper U-heat pipes and a large number of thin aluminum fins. Copper material is good for thermal conductivity which is about twice than aluminum material but aluminum is cheaper and good for heat dissipation so most of the high end coolers will have mixed of these two materials. 

 

The shape of NorthQ 3350A is not really rectangular or square in order to maximize the cooling effectiveness and easy installation. At the both sides of the cooler, there is a concave area which is for installation purpose to allow user to secure the clips on the CPU socket bracket. The cooler has a V curve at the bottom of the heatsink to reduce the noise and increase the airflow where the fan will be attached here.

 

As we mentioned previously, NorthQ 3350A is made by three heat pipes which has direct contact with the CPU. This is very common recently for CPU cooler manufacturers as it can increase the heat conductivity in such way. However due to two materials mixing for the base surface, the finishing must be very well and even in order to get the maximum area for conductivity between the CPU cooler and the processor. 

 

NorthQ 3350A has a very good design for the heatsink installation. The clip is pre installed with the heatsink and it can be used to mount on AMD system; K8/754/939/940/AM2 without any new bracket. If user is using Intel LGA platform, then user just need to install the incoming CPU socket bracket on the motherboard which is supplied by NorthQ. With such, NorthQ has standardized the installation for both AMD and Intel platforms.

For Intel users, the incoming socket bracket is required to be installed on the motherboard. Four buckles are provided to secure the socket bracket on the motherboard. When we received the sample, we still doubt whether could this bracket hold the heatsink firmly on the motherboard but after the testing, we could tell you that this bracket and buckles are working very well.

 

Fan mounting on the heatsink is required to be done by the end user where user needs to attach the springs together with the fan on the heatsink. Since the fan of NorthQ 3350A is a standard 92mm fan that means user can change to any other more powerful or silent fan according to their need.

 

NorthQ 3350A fan is a 92mm fan which is made by hydromatic ball bearing. Other specifications of the fan are; 22.4-40.3 CFM and 12-21dB which can be controlled by the fan speed controller. The fan speed controller is just like normal voltage regulatory but it comes with additional feature; build in alarm function to indicate if the fan stops spinning during operation.

 

 

Installation, Testing & Performance

 

Here are the pictures after the completed installation of NorthQ 3350A. Isn't it a nice looking cooler?

 

The installation of NorthQ 3350A is simple for AMD platforms but a bit troublesome for Intel user. For AMD platforms, user just need to clip the NorthQ 3350A heatsink on the motherboard original CPU socket bracket which is come along with the motherboard. For Intel platform, user needs to install the CPU socket bracket on the motherboard with the four buckles which is provided by NorthQ. After that the rest of the installation is same with AMD platforms. Overall, we only found one problem for this cooler; 3350A from NorthQ is the fan installation. The fan need to be installed on the heatsink by using the spring and this couldn't be done by just using bare hand so hopefully NorthQ will revise their spec of the spring at least to make it loosen a bit so that user can mount the fan on the heatsink with these springs easily.

Test Bed
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8300
Memory: 4GB 800MHz DDR2 Memory
Hard Drive: 250GB 7200RPM 8MB Seagate HDD
Graphic Card: Nvidia GeForce GTX280
Optical Drive: 16x DVD RW
System BIOS: F7
Operating System: Microsoft Window XP SP2
Benchmark Software: Gigabyte Easy Tune 6
Ambient Temperature: 27 Degree Celsius

Here are the temperature comparison results for NorthQ 3350A with the rest of the coolers including NorthQ 3360A as well. Obviously NorthQ 3350A can't beat the 120mm giant CPU cooler like Tuniq Tower 120 and its sister; NorthQ 3360A. However with its size, we would say it is doing quite well especially when you compare it with a stock cooler.

 

Conclusion

NorthQ 3350A may not the best cooler but if you are looking for a heatsink that fit your small casing or limited space constraint, cheap, and decent performance then NorthQ 3350A is one of your choice. The MSRP suggested for NorthQ 3350A is 31USD which is only around 6USD cheaper than NorthQ 3360A. We would recommend NorthQ 3350A CPU cooler for moderate users where it comes with pretty good performance and great features like heatpipes, direct contact design, easy installation, flexibility of fan changing, alarming feature and etc.

Pros:
* 3 extreme heatpipes with direct contact with the CPU
* Changeable with other 92mm fan
* Easy installation
* Fan controller comes with build in alarming feature

Cons:
* A bit expensive

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

 

Only registered users may post a comment.

Enzo (Guest)	3.0 / 5	Wed 12 Nov 08
Wow. It's like Zalman and Xigmatek had a baby.