Date: August 24th, 2004
Article by: Nathan Glentworth (Owner, Head Editor & Hardware Reviewer)
Product was donated by: Intel
<--SHOP FOR THE INTEL D925XCV LGA775 PENTIUM 4 ALDERWOOD MOTHERBOARD HERE

PRODUCT WALKTHROUGH & PICTORIAL

For the current price of around US$200-US$210 you will receive the following features.

With the new LGA775 processor socket, you will see above that the pins between the motherboard and the CPU are now housed on the motherboard. What this has cleverly done is lower the CPU manufacturing costs for Intel and put the bent pin responsibility in the hands of the motherboard manufacturer. Some motherboard manufacturers are not very happy about this responsibility being dropped in their laps.

The processor and socket are keyed so that it can only be installed properly. The pins in the motherboard socket are spring loaded to allow for constant pin pressure on the processor contact points. Unfortunately, some reports on motherboard pin defects are already showing their ugly heads.

With the processor socket door closed, the LGA775 processor heatspreader is waiting for your new LGA775 cooling solution. You will no longer have to worry about your CPU cooler tearing the processor right out of the socket when changing cooling solutions. Speaking of cooling solutions, notice that the bracket seen on 478pin boards is missing. The new LGA775 based cooling solution from Intel can be summed up as simple and VERY effective without any brackets or extra hardware.

The copper core based radial cooler Intel sent with the motherboard is leaps and bounds better than the stock cooler packaged with the 478pin P4s. Radial coolers offer a lot more surface area for heat dissipation, allow for even concentric cooling and can be used with slower and quieter fans without the loss of cooling ability.

To install, you basically set the cooler in place with all four pins over the four holes in the motherboard and push each corner pin down till you hear two clicks meaning the pin is locked in place. To remove, use a flat head screw driver and rotate each pin quarter of a turn to the right and pull the pin straight up.

Now with the cooling hardware install aside, you basically don't have to worry about a thing. Intel has implemented an automatic CPU fan control into the BIOS which allows the fan to only run at speeds needed to cool the processor properly at a certain heat and load range. I personally found this a great addition that actually worked perfectly. In some cases in the past, I have let my guard down and tried other automatic fan control software on other manufacturer's board only to find out that it failed and almost cooked my processor. In this case, I would definitely use it for a quiet and cool computing environment.