3DfxCOOL
Socket
370 Alpha 7HO-FAN review
Posted
by Adam
Klein on September 16, 1999 - Page 3/3
Company:
3DfxCOOL
Product: Socket 7-370 Alpha 7HO-FAN
Heat
Monitoring
Armed
with my tried and true thermal probe, I compared what this
cooler could do compared to my generic black cooler in heat
dispersion. I was very surprised at how well the Alpha did
and how poorly the generic cooler did. You first have to see
my system specs to get an idea of what is also generating
heat:
- CeleronA
366 overclocked to 567MHz
- Abit BX6
r2
- 1x 128MB
Siemens PC125 RAM
- 1x 64MB
Siemens PC125 RAM
- 1x 32MB
Siemens PC125 RAM
- 2x Maxtor
8.4GB Hard Drives
- Creative
Labs 48X CD-ROM
- Creative
Labs Sound Blaster Live Value
- Creative
Labs TNT2 Ultra
- NEC
Floppy
- Zoom 56K
Internal Modem
- D-Link
NIC
- 250W
Power Supply with fan blowing air out
- Fan in
back blowing air out
- Fan in
front blowing air in
The
system was running a Quake 3 loop for about 30 minutes or
until the temperature stopped increasing, then the
temperatures were recorded. The room temperature was
measured at 74 degrees Fahrenheit. The probe was placed as
close as possible to the CPU cap.
Generic
Cooler: 146 degrees Fahrenheit
3DfxCOOL
Alpha Cooler: 123 degrees Fahrenheit
As
you can see here, it makes you wonder how I was able to
overclock the 366 to 550MHz with the generic cooler at all.
The Alpha performed like an Alpha should. To those people
who are having trouble getting a stable 550MHz operation
from their 366s I recommend looking into Alpha coolers.
Conclusion
The
Alpha is by far one of the best coolers, even for the Socket
370 CPUs. You can tell that there was some major research
done in design the design of the Alpha. 3DfxCOOL make this
heatsink and fan combo available at a reasonable cost.
The
package also includes a tube of high quality MPU 3.7
heatsink compound and a converter for the power connector on
the fan, which is always a welcome bonus. You will probably
need to refer to the installation instructions a couple of
time, so luckily the instructions were well written with
helpful pictures. I can’t find many things that come to
mind when I think of this cooler.
There
are other, bigger alternatives, but there aren’t many that
come close to the Alphas heat dispersion efficiency.
Anything that can give me more performance out of my system
makes me happy. You do, however, have to make sure this
cooler fits in your system first, but most should have no
problem installing it.
|
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3D
Spotlight review score:
9.5/10 |
Company:
3DfxCOOL
Product: Socket 7-370 Alpha 7HO-FAN
Go
to 3D Spotlight !
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