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Socket A Cooler Roundup


Date
: 02/14/01 – 05:20:24 PM

Author
:

Category
: Cooling

OCZ Monster II & Quad Cool

Manufactor: OCZ

Price Monster II : $24.99

Price Quad Cool : $29.99

Kindly supplied by OCZ!

Alpha PEP66 with KT7 mod kit

Manufactor: Alpha Company Ltd.

Price : $39.95

Kindly supplied by the Coolerguys!

GlobalWin FOP38

Manufactor: GlobalWin

Price : $25.00

Kindly supplied by 2CoolTek!

Introduction

A couple weeks ago, we had something like a special ‘cooler review only’ week @ Overclockers Online. It wasn’t meant to be like that but it did turn out to be. The last couple of months, we witnessed an enormous increase of the amount of Socket A coolers on the market. But according to my own experience, lots of these coolers are just not good enough to cool down that highly overclocked AMD Thunderbird/Duron! And because we don’t want you to spend $30 on a cooler that can’t do his job, we decided to make you a little socket A cooler roundup.

The contestants :

• OCZ Monster II
• OCZ Quad Cool
• Alpha PEP66 with KT7 mod kit
• GlobalWin FOP38

We will give you idle CPU temps and CPU temps under full load of each heatsink. The idle temps were taken NOT right after startup but after starting up the PC AND waiting half an hour without running a single program. The temps under full load were taken after an hour of Prime95 together with RC5 with the case closed and WITHOUT any extra case cooling turned on.

We tested all HSF in this review with the standard fan that it came with. That’s because we want to see how good/bad these coolers perform with the fan that they are meant to work with. Modifications to the cooler can be made according to your own wishes…

The Tests

Test System :

- AOpen HQ45 (without case cooling)

-
AMD Duron 800 @ 1GHz (1.80v)

- Abit KT7 RAID Motherboard (supplied by OCZ)

- 128MB PC133 RAM

- Creative Annihilator Pro (GeForce 256 DDR)

- WD 45GB UDMA100 7200rpm hard drive

- Windows 2000 + SP1 + 4.25a VIA drivers + 6.50 Deto drivers

The GlobalWin FOP38

Well, let’s start with my all time favorite when it comes to raw cooling performance, the FOP38. The anodized aluminum alloy heatsink fits both Intel and AMD CPUs & its black Delta fan running at 7000RPM can produce an avarage airflow of 37.6CFM. That’s almost enough airflow to move an hovercraft! The only drawback on this FOP 38 is the noise level, 46.5Dba! Believe me, the noise on this HSF can be really annoying sometimes. But heck… if you need performance, you have to sacrifice the silence. Although some of you might need some tools to keep the mouting clip down while you fasten it, we can say the FOP38 heatsink is pretty easy to mount.

Performance : Well now, the FOP38 really shows its true power here. It manages to keep the temps of the overclocked Duron down to 39C under full load. Let’s see how the other coolers in the test perform…

The Alpha PEP66T with KT7 mod kit

In our full Alpha PEP66T review we discovered that this PEP66 heatsink was able to get my P3-700E past the 1Ghz barrier. Sadly enough, the PEP66T would NOT fit on Abit KT7(A) motherboards because of the capacitors that are placed too close to socket. Now there’s a new PEP66T with the KT7 mod kit available. New for this unit is the smaller fan. It uses a 60x60x10mm delta fan blowing around 21.19 CFM @ 4800RPM that allows the heatsink to be mounted onto space limited boards like the KT7 without interfering with the capacitors. With its 36.5Dba noise level, this fan can be considered as a pretty quiet fan which is very nice indeed. A MAJOR drawback on these Alphas is the mounting clip. I don’t know what you guys think about it, but I always hate installing an Alpha HSF!

Performance : At first I was pretty disappointed by these results. I mean, 49C seemed pretty damn warm to me for an Alpha PEP66T. But then I realised that the reason for this ‘high’ temperature is probably the small thin fan that cannot provide enough airflow to cool down the heatsink.

OCZ Monster II

I want to start by discussing the retention mechanism. The mechanism on this cooler is one of the best I’ve ever seen. You can easily put this HSF onto your CPU by using just one single hand! Pretty neat, huh?! Our Monster II review sample arrived with a 60mm Delta fan running @ 7000RPM. In fact, it’s exactly the same fan as we used on the FOP38. The Monster II can be ordered with 3 different fans : a low noise version with a 25-28CFM fan, the standard version with a 34-38CFM fans (the one we tested) and a high airflow version with a 48-54CFM (!!) fan.

Performance : Although this Monster II is used the same fan as we used on the FOP38, the CPU temperature went up to 45C which is 6C more then with the FOP38.

OCZ Quad Cool

The OCZ Quad Cool is the only cooler out of the test that uses more than one fan to cool down the heatsink. It uses four small fans that generate 16-18CFM of airflow each (that’s a combined total airflow of around 50CFM). The Quad Cool uses exactly the same heatsink as the Monster II… the only difference is the four fans instead of the single Delta on the Monster II, so this HSF has the same easy mounting clip as the Monster II (we just love this clip!) One more thing about the Quad Cool: the four small fans produce nearly the same noise level as the Delta 7000RPM fan on the FOP38 and the OCZ Monster II.

Performance : This four fan HSF also performs very nicely. It was able to cool down the CPU to 46C. That only 1C warmer than the Monster II.

Summary

Well, it looks like the GlobalWin FOP38 remains unbeated in our tests! The OCZ Monster II and Quad Cool also managed to keep the CPU temperature under full load down to an acceptable 45C. On the other hand, the Alpha PEP66T with KT7 mod kit is definately the worst cooler in the test. Hey there Alpha lovers, don’t shoot me! I’m only summarying our test results here. I didn’t say an Alpha is a bad cooler, but as our tests show, it’s the just the worst cooler in our roundup today.

Conclusion

So? What’s the conclusion of our little test? In our little roundup, GlobalWin’s FOP38 is still the absolute ruler of the HSF kingdom. Don’t understand me wrong, all the heatsinks in the test perform very well, as they were all able to cool my Duron down to under 50C. But we have to pick a winner here, right? If only the fan manifactors could make a 7000RPM fan that doesn’t sound make my PC sound like my mother’s vacuum cleaner!!