Date: December 27th, 2010
Article by: Joe Anderson (Hardware Reviewer)
Edited By: Nathan Glentworth (Owner / Head Editor)
Product was submitted by: Corsair
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PRODUCT PICTORIAL AND WALKTHROUGH (cont'd)
The fin array is relatively open to take advantage of lower speed and pressure fans, but the dimples will create turbulence, promising good cooling with quiet operation. Unsurprisingly, the fit and finish of the cooler is excellent and the sturdy base should provide a very stable base for the mounting solutions.
Corsair uses the direct-contact heatpipe process for maximum cooling efficiency, eliminating the extra layer that comes between the ‘pipes and the processor in conventional cooler design. While the base lacks the highly polished finish seen on many coolers, this base is dead flat and should provide very good cooling performance, and the extra heatpipe surface should improve heat transfer from the CPU to the fin array. We'll see.
Corsair provides a pair of dual ball bearing 120mm fan with three-pin connectors for the A-70 and they are mounted in fan shrouds with rubber isolators for quiet operation. Each fan shroud has four plastic clips allowing the user to simply snap the assembly onto the cooler after it's attached to the socket. Four rubber bumpers per shroud further isolate any fan vibrations from being transferred to, and amplified by, the fin array. Corsair also supplies two resistor cables to lower the fan speeds and a y-adapter cable to power the fans from a single 3-pin motherboard header. I'll reserve judgment on the mounting and fan solutions until after the A70 is on the motherboard, but I like what I see so far.
The mounting solutions Corsair provides with the A70 look very simple and robust. I like simple and robust. AMD users will be happy to see that they can use the OEM retention bracket and accomplish cooler installation without using a single tool. As usual, Intel installations will require a bit more work but these mounts look relatively easy to install. Also is a generous syringe of thermal compound.
Well, that about does it for the walkaround. Let's get the A50 on the testbed and see how it does.
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