We start our tests with our Intel Core i7-920 processor running at its native speeds. The Spire Thermal Eclipse II was quite efficient and lowered the temperature of the CPU to 45 degrees Celsius. This is among the top performances among the heatsinks we have tested so far. We remind you that we used the Thermal Eclipse II in a dual fan configuration:

We made things a little bit harder for the Spire Thermal Eclipse II by overclocking the Intel Core-i7 920 to 3.60GHz. This time the heatsink lowered the temperature down to 62 degrees C, which remains a good performance. However, the same performance was logged with the Scythe Mugen 2 and Cogage True Spirit heatsinks installed:

High noise levels coming out from the heatsink's fans may be annoying when you are working or enjoying a movie or game on your PC. The 120mm fans on the Spire Thermal Eclipse II heatsink spin at 2200RPM by default. This creates a moderate 48 dB noise when two are installed. We remind you that the fans are not PWM compliant and no fan speed controller is supplied if you want things to run quieter. As a result, the only way to calm things down a little bit is to use a single fan configuration, which should lower the noise levels at about 43 dB. However, this would mean a serious performance trade-off:

Pricewise, the Spire Thermal Eclipse II retails for about $53, which is a good price for most users, considering that Spire has included both the 120mm fans to the package: