With the Achilles S1284 Xigmatek presents a towercooler which should have an enormeous cooling potential. Four heatpipes with eight millimeters in diameter are directly built into the ground plate through the "Direct Touch" process. You'll also find a big and silent 120 mm fan to transfer the heat to the environment.The still young company XIGMATEK which was founded in 2005 is focussed on manufacturing producs for the "IT thermal industry". What they actually produce are for example affordable coolers which can cope with the best on the market.
On the following pages you'll have the opportunity to read what Xigmateks Achilles S1284 is capable of.
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Specifications and included in delivery
Specifications
| Model | Achilles S1284 |
| Material | Aluminium |
| Dimension (WxDxH) | 120x60x159 mm |
| Cooling area | ca. 3800 cm2 |
| Cooling capacity | > 150 Watt |
| Fan dimensions | 120 x 25 mm |
| RPM | 800 - 1500 RPM +/-10% |
| Acoustic pressure | < 20dB +/-10% |
| Connector | 4-Pin |
| Power consumption | 1.54 Watt |
| Flow rate | 61.4 CFM |
| Weight | 660g |
Included in delivery
- CPU cooler
- Mounting kit for Socket AM2, 939, 940, 745 and 775
- 120 mm fan with anti vibration mounting kit
- Mounting components
- Thermal grease
- Manual multilingual
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Construction and design
Construction
The Xigmatek Achilles S1284C consists of aluminium and copper. Four massive heatpipes are the basis and establish direct contact to the CPU cooler.
The four massive, nickel coated heatpipes immediately catch the beholders view. On the ground plate those are planed to establish direct contact with the CPU. Xigmatek calls this manufacturing process H.D.T. (Heatpipe Direct Touch).
As you can see on the image above there are small gaps between the Heatpipes and the cooler ground plate. At the this point we would wish and appreciate an also perfect manufacturing process.
Design
The looks of Xigmateks Achilles S1284C aren't what you call spectacular although the fins got an interesting and nice design.
The 120 mm fan got transparent orange rotor blades which are illuminated by four white LEDs. Like this Xigmatek generates an optical impact.
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Mounting
If you have to fit your cooler on a Socket 775 motherboard you can do so with the delivered push-pin mounting kit. On a Socket AM2 oder 939 Xigmatek provides you with a clip. For the 120 mm fan you'll find five rubber plugs in order you'll lose one.
With the push-pins one can put the cooler on its mainboard easily but we recommend installing the cooling block first and the 120 mm fan when the block already sits on the mainboard.
On a Socket 775 motherboard you can mount the cooler in every single direction. Because of its sheer size you might encounter compatibility issues with some mainboards.
On an AMD System you're able to mount the cooler in two directions because of the heatpipes.
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Testsystem and testroutine
Testsystem
| Mainboard | Gigabyte X48-DS5 |
| Processor | Intel Core 2 Quad QX6800 |
| Memory | Kingston KHX 8500 D2K2 DDR2 |
| Hard disk | Maxtor 160 GByte |
| Power supply | OCZ 520 Watt |
| Thermal grease | Arctic Silver 5 |
Testroutine
In our tables we mention absolute temperatures as well as the temperature difference between CPU core and environment temperature. We further provide subjective information about the noise level of the fan the cooler comes with.
The noise level we classify as follows: very silent, silent, audible, noisy and very noisy.
The CPU temperature we evaluate with Real Temp and with Prime95 we reach a 100% CPU load.
Futher we test the different fans with different voltages and under different conditions. After one hour warm-up we perform three test runs where every single one takes one hour:
- [Standard clock 12 volts load
- Standard clock 6 volts load
- Overclocking 12 volts load
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Results standard clock (2.93 GHz) 12 volts
| Rank | Cooler / fan | Temp. diff. load | Absolute temp. | RPM | Noise level | Review link |
| 1. | Xigmatek Achilles S1284C | 47 K | 68 °C | 1550 | silent | Achilles S1284C |
| 2. | Xigmatek Dark Knight S1283 | 51 K | 74 °C | 2120 | silent | Xigmatek Dark Knight S1283 |
| 3. | Zerotherm BTF-90 | 59 K | 80 °C | 2100 | noisy | |
| 4. | Xigmatek Apache EP-CD901 | >80 K (Systemabsturz) | >80 °C (Systemabsturz) | 2570 | noisy | Xigmatek Apache EP-CD901 |
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Results standard clock 6 volts
| Rank | Cooler / fan | Temp. diff. load | Absolute temp. | RPM | Noise level | Review link |
| 1. | Xigmatek Achilles S1284C | 55 K | 76 °C | 1000 | very silent | Achilles S1284C |
| 2. | Xigmatek Dark Knight S1283 | 61 K | 85 °C | 970 | silent | Xigmatek Dark Knight S1283 |
| 3. | Zerotherm BTF-90 | 65 K | 85 °C | 1530 | audible | |
| 4. | Xigmatek Apache EP-CD901 | >80 K (Systemabsturz) | >80 °C (Systemabsturz) | 1540 | noisy | Xigmatek Apache EP-CD901 |
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Results overclocking (3,66 GHz) 12 volts
| Rank | Cooler / fan | Temp. diff. load | Absolute temp. | RPM | Noise level | Review link |
| 1. | Xigmatek Achilles S1284C | 56 K | 77 °C | 1550 | silent | Achilles S1284C |
| 2. | Xigmatek Dark Knight S1283 | 56 K | 80 °C | 2100 | silent | Xigmatek Dark Knight S1283 |
| 3. | Zerotherm BTF-90 | 64 K | 85 °C | 2100 | noisy | |
| 4. | Xigmatek Apache EP-CD901 | >80 K (Systemabsturz) | >80 °C (Systemabsturz) | 2570 | noisy | Xigmatek Apache EP-CD901 |
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Conclusion
With the Xigmatek Achilles S1284C we put the bar high for other competitors which can be expected on a regular basis.
With the Achilles S1284C Xigmatek present an overall good
product which is aimed at overclockers as well as PC enthusiasts.
The push-pins which allow a trouble-free installation of the cooler surprised
the editoral staff. At 12 volts the 120 mm fan does its job silently and with
only 6 volts the fan is very quiet. At 12 volts Xigmateks Achilles S1284C is
also capable of dealing with a 25 percent increase of the core frequency to 3.66
GHz.
The Achilles S1284C has only two potential problems: First the ground plate
isn't manufactured perfectly which means that you'll find tiny gaps and second
its sheer size which could possibly cause compatibility problems with distinct
mainboards.
With the Achilles S1284 Xigmatek shows us a tower cooler that delivers a lot of cooling performance. Furthermore the price for this much cooling power is very competitive.
You can buy the Xigmatek H.D.T. S1284A Achilles for CHF 65.- at Digitec.ch.
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Author: i.gigier@ocaholic.ch Revised by: m.buechel@ocaholic.ch