Socket-A Cooler Roundup: September 2001

A look to the future

Following this roundup, here are a few thoughts about where the heatsink  market is moving, and where it should move in our opinion:

- "Through motherboard" mounting is the way to go. Heatsinks get heavier, CPUs are fragile, and reports of heatsink mounting pegs that broke off the socket are quite frequent. All Socket A motherboards have four little holes around the socket, which allow large heatsinks to be fixed the motherboard itself instead of just the socket. This way of mounting is definately more stable and safer, especially for heavy heatsinks. Swiftech were the first to recognize this, by now Zalman and Alpha have followed - let's hope other manufacturers will do the same. If a classic "socket" clip is still being used, it should at least be designed in a way that it uses all six pegs on the socket - and not just two, especially when the heatsink is heavy. The worst-case examples are the Millenium Glaciator and the Silverado: Despite being heavy, they use just two pegs - and therefore their manufacturers recommend to uninstall the heatsink whenever the PC is moved. Definately not practical.

- Larger fans are the way to go. In our "cooling technology overview", we pointed out that larger, slower-spinning fans provide a better ratio between airflow and performance than fast-spinning, smaller fans. In '97, the transition from 50mm fans to 60mm fans for CPU cooler started.  Right now, the transition from 60mm to 80mm starts - and this is good. We'd like to see more coolers using larger fans, instead of using even faster-spinning 60mm fans (like the new Delta 8000rpm fans, which we intentionally didn't use for our test - we don't recommend these even for hardcore overclockers, because the noise level is simply unbearable).

- Temperature controlled fans are the way to go. We've seen temperature controlled fans in AnandTech cooler roundups before. But these had a built-in sensor that just measures ambient temperature. For best results, the fan speed should depend on the actual heatsink temperature. This time, somebody finally does it right: Tiger Electronics. On their cooler, the sensor is embedded into the base plate, and measures the temperature there were it counts. The ideal solution would be a temperature control where the temperature at which the CPU should be kept can be adjusted by the user - this would make temperature controlled fans even suitable for overclocking. A fan temperature control with user-adjustable temperature range (as it is sold by Thetatech) can be made from just three parts (for those interested: a MOSFET transistor, an NTC, and a potentiometer), and could be mass-produced for about $2. We will publish the simple plan for this circuit, as well as recommendations for suitable transistors, on heatsink-guide.com in fall.

- Copper is the way to go. In this roundup, most coolers were made of copper or at least contained a copper inlay. Especially the outstanding performance of the Thermalright SK6 proves that this makes sense - copper coolers can be both compact and efficient.