Last year we had a chance to look at a uniquely designed cooler from a company that was reletively new on the USA market, Xigmatek. The feature that made Xigmateks products stand out amongst the rest was their uniquely designed HDT or Heat-Pipe Direct Touch system for heatsinks. They gave us the oppurtunity to review one of their products called the HDT-S1283, a 120mm fan mounting tower cooler with 3 U-Style heatpipes which make direct contact with the processor IHS. This particular cooler shocked us all when it gave the Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme, the current and still reigning heavy weight champion of air coolers, a complete run for its money, coming within 3 degrees celcius of matching performance power. Since that time, Xigmatek has made huge strides in their product designs, releasing several new coolers based on the similar HDT design as well as adding some flair to them as well. Today we are going to be looking at the Xigmatek Red Scorpion S1283, a stylish alternative to the original design.

We will start things off here by giving a quick run down of the important specifications.

As you can see the Red Scorpion works on all major socket types. Lets take a look at our sample Red Scorpion closer now.

Xigmatek Red Scorpion Packaging, Click to Enlarge.

The Red Scorpion comes extremely well packed in the brand box, the heatsink and the fan is well protected inside of foam so that no damage is taken during shipping. Opening the box we see the fan included with the red scorpion is a stylish black and sort of orange red color, which incorporates white led’s when in operation. The heatsink body itself remains roughly the same, with the exception of the fact that the previous rough design of the HDT-S1283 is now replaced by polished aluminum fins and nickle plated heatpipes instead of just bare copper and rough finished aluminum. The base of the Red Scorpion remains the same as well, with the same HDT design, and rough finish. If you were able to read our last review, you may remember we commented on the uneven qualitys of the base, as well as gaps in between the heatpipes, on the Red Scorpion we still see this same issue. A closer look at the included fan reveals several problems as well relating to the overall quality of the design. In a closer picture listed below, you will see that the glue for several of the LED’s is horribly placed and shows no sign of quality construction.

Included 120mm Fan, Click to Enlarge.

Xigmatek Red Scorpion 120mm Fan, Click to Enlarge.

120mm Fan Specifications, Click to Enlarge.

Red Scorpion up close, Click to Enlarge.

Red Scorpion lower portion, Click to Enlarge.

Red Scorpion base with HDT, Click to Enlarge.

Poor fan build quality, Click to Enlarge.

We will be testing the Red Scorpion on a similar platform we used to test the HDT-S1283, using the same Q6600 B3 Quad Core processor from Intel, as well as comparing it against the retail box cooler from intel with a copper core. Installation of the Red Scorpion is easy as pie, two simple screws hold the mounting brackets onto the heatsink securely, and the fan uses soft rubber mounts that are very easy to install on the heatsink itself as well, with a bonus of noise reduction from the rubber mounts which dont allow vibration against the heatsink. One unfortunate downside to all this is the Red Scorpion still uses the same Push-Pin style mounts that the HDT-S1283 uses. Although this makes for a super easy install, it comprimises reliability as the amount of pressure being applied to the CPU and the motherboard is signifigantly more then the retail box cooler for the cpu. We would have liked to have seen a nut and bolt style mounting system with a backplate. Also included with the kit is a “spoiler” as they call it (not pictured), the concept behind the spoiler is that it is supposed to push some of the air exhausting from the heatsink down onto your mosfet area, however we find this to be rather pointless, and the spoiler has a tendacy to fall right off. Something we struggled with in our previous review as well. From the pictures below you can see the exciting colors of the included 120mm fan, in fact it was such a nice color i sat for several minutes watching it spin around and around. Odd…yes.

Red Scorpion in operation, Click to Enlarge.

Red Scorpion fan LED’s, Click to Enlarge.

Testing

Our testing results were rather interesting this time around. We are using a new program for all heatsink testing this year, called “Core Damage”. It works drastically different from the tradiational prime95 testing you are used to seeing, putting out between 5-10c more in heat load at its maximum setting. This makes our testing especially tough for all would be heatsinks.

The first order of business was to test the retail intel heatsink for aproximately 1 hour at the maximum setting. At the end of our testing we recorded an average across the 4 cores of 73.25 degrees celsius while the room temperature was 69.8 (21c) degrees farenheit.

Now the Red Scorpion is put through the same test, but first, we would like to make a special note here. The HDT design brings a uniquely different base type to the table here, and traditional thermal paste application methods become largely ineffective in this situation. Through testing with the original HDT-S1283 heatsink, the thermal paste application that acheieved the best results was that of the line method as described by Arctic Silver. You want to make certain that your line of thermal paste will intersect all 3 heatpipes as it is mounted to the CPU.

Thermal paste application, Click to Enlarge.

After 1 hour of our core damage testing, we recorded an average across all 4 cores of 59.5 degrees celsius and the room temperature had increased only slightly to 70.7 (21.5c) degrees farenheit. Thats almost a 14 degree drop in our temperatures, a modest improvement from the retail cooler. Our delta averages were 52.25 celsius for our Intel Retail Box cooler, and 38 celsius for the Red Scorpion. Where does that put us? These results litterally exactly match the results we recorded last year during our Heatsink Showdown event, where the original HDT-S1283 was paired up against a huge variety of heatsinks on the same Q6600 B3 quad core. Both now and then we seen the same 14 degree drop in temperatures and i have to say i am very pleased with the results.

Animated Chart Showing Average Load Temperatures on a Q6600 Quad Core processor.

Animated Chart Showing the DeltaT Average Temperature.

Comments/Suggestions

There is nothing that doesnt make this cooler a down right excellent choice for all users. Now with an even more stylish design to back up the superior performance. The only suggestions i can make here for Xigmatek to consider is getting rid of the push-pin style mounting system, for not only reliability sake, but for a more quality mount as well.

What we liked…

• Enough cooling performance to even go toe to toe with the Ultra 120 Exreme
• Trippy LED red fan
• Now in a more polished and glimmering design
• HDT - Proven performance over traditional base designs
• Considerably quiet 120mm fan
• Very easy to install for beginners, making it an extreme bargain for its performance and value

What we didnt like…

• Push-Pin style mounting system
• Fan is kinda cheaply made
• Spoiler is pointless and rediculous

Follow Up Report: Immediately after we submitted our review, Xigmatek was quick to respond to us with great news for all users. They have heeded the words of their fan base and have released a new backplate and spring screw mount system that is a direct replacement to the push-pin style system included with their coolers. You can view the system here at their page… Xigmatek “Crossbow”

Want to see the Red Scorpion pitted up against the best coolers of 2008? Stay tuned in because the Heatsink Showdown 2 is coming soon!