The Basics:
Inside the box was the AS-C1000, a pair of very well drawn and written mounting instructions, and a bag of assembly parts. Inside the bag were two thick chrome crosses (one with foam covering one side), a tube of grey heatsink compound, and a handful of hardware.
The turbine part of the
Antazone heatsink is actually a tight group of 70 radial fins with 3 heatpipes wrapped around it, and the heatpipes continue on down to a rather small CPU block. The bottom of the heatsink is protected by a blue film. Removing the film shows that the bottom is not a perfect mirror, but not too bad, and it should transfer heat rather well.
The whole thing is shrouded in a smoke colored plastic clamshell with a rather unique fan attached to one side.
Not being one to leave things alone, I needed to take this cooler apart and see it without its "smoke jacket". Removing the 4 self tapping screws that hold the fan on allows the two pieces of the clamshell to spread apart and be lifted off the copper turbine. The Antazone plaque on the top also holds the clamshell together, but not firm enough to keep them from being separated. In the pictures below you can also see some small white insulators to keep fan vibrations isolated from the heatsink.
I mentioned previously that the fan was rather unique. Not only is the fan a strange size, 95mm instead of the normal 80mm or 92mm, it is also does not have the usual square external shape. It also is unique in its bearing design. It uses bearing technology that the manufacturer, Tek-Chain, calls M.B.B or Magnetic Barometric Bearing. Tek-Chain says this fan will last 70,000 hours. They claim airflow of 49.8cfm, with a noise level of 25dBA and a speed of only 2200rpm. That’s quite a bit of air from a fairly quiet fan. One other unique property of this fan that I will not test is the claim that it is waterproof. The Tek-Chain website shows the fan running under water, something I doubt will be of use as a CPU cooler fan.
