Socket-A & Socket-370 Cooler Roundup - November 2000

Introduction

For this test, we tried to reproduce a typical overclocker's system configuration as closely as possible. The test system was equiped with an Abit KT7-RAID motherboard, a Thunderbird-750 CPU (overclocked to 950MHz using 1.8V voltage), an Asus V6800 graphics card (GeForce1), and 256 MB PC133 RAM. We used an Asus/Elan Vital midtower case and an Antec power supply.

The temperature measurements were made using the KT7's onboard thermistor, which is located underneath the CPU. In order to get more accurate results, we bent the thermistor a little up, so that it is in direct contact with the CPU, and applied a little thermal compound on the sensor head.

All coolers were tested with thermal compound. If a thermal transfer pad was preinstalled on the heatsink, it was removed.

All coolers tested here (except for the older version of the Alpha PAL6035) are also suitable for Intel CPUs.

Here are the test results:
 

Heatsink	Temperature
Kanie Hedgehog-238M Delta fan	41°C
Global WIN FOP38	43°C
Kanie Hedgehog-238M YS Tech fan	44°C
Alpha PAL6035 YS Tech fan	45°C
Global WIN FOP32	45°C
Taisol CGK742092	45°C
Thermaltake "Super Orb"	45°C
Alpha PAL6035 Sanyo Denki fan	46°C
Thermaltake "Chrome Orb"	47°C
Cooler Master  DP5-5K11	54 °C
JMC (RDJD) Arctic Breeze Plus (1)	55°C

 
(1) The JMC Arctic Breeze Plus has a temperature controlled fan. In the test setup, the fan did not permanently spin at maximum speed. Therefore, the obtained measurement does not represent maximum performance under more extreme conditions.