Date: May 25th, 2006
Article by: Joe Anderson (Hardware Reviewer)
Edited by: Nathan Glentworth (Owner / Head Editor)
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PRODUCT PICTORIAL AND WALKTHROUGH
After removing the fan, I got another pleasant surprise. The fan is made by Delta and measures 80X20mm. While this is a high-speed fan (5000+ RPM), the thermal sensor indicated by the red arrow will automatically adjust fan speed to meet cooling demands. This HSF is looking better and better all the time! A three-wire, three-pin connector powers the fan from an appropriate motherboard pinheader.
With the fan removed, we can get a better view of the fin arrangement. An aluminum shroud acts both as a fan mount and also directs the airflow downward through the fins. As you can see, the fins are densely packed and appear to be soldered to the heatpipes. Even the retention mechanism is designed to maximize the cooler's exposure to airflow from the fan.
Speaking of the retention mechanism, there are no surprises, with the late-model clip-and-lever design pulling duty here. This promises an easy and secure installation.
Let's put this beauty back together, get it installed, and see how it performs.
INSTALLATION AND TESTING
We're going to test the new heatpipe cooler against the old standby aluminum AMD cooler. As you can see, the heatpipe cooler is a bit larger, but not much. Fan size and design differences are easily seen in the above photo.
This table will give you some idea of the size differences between these two coolers. The new heatpipe cooler is not only compact, it comes in under the recommended maximum weight (450 g.) in the ATX spec. Being a rather low-profile design, weight is concentrated at the base of the cooler, minimizing leverage stresses on the retention bracket and motherboard. There should be no issues at all with any ATX mobo.
