SUMMARY: When we think of processor cooling devices most of us would first think of Thermaltake, CoolerMaster or OCZ. What about if we told you to think of Gigabyte? Start thinking about it! Gigabyte has just released their very first cooler for AMD Athlon XP and 64 as well as Intel Pentium 4. We've got Gigabyte's 3D cooler on the test bed. Come see just what it is capable of when we push some more MHz through the processors!
As always Gigabytes packaging is attractive and distinctive, no mistaking this for anyone elses product. The cooler is shipped encased in plastic with all of its attachments. This is by far the most versatile cooler available. Inside you get the cooler, installation manual covering installs for P4, K7 and K8, 3.5 drive bay power controller, PCI expansion power controller face plate, power splitter and thermal compound.
Now we take a look at the cooler itself. The unit is extremely large, and for good reason - it is based on a heatpipe design. A copper base plate collects the heat from the CPU die or the IHS (integrated heat spreader on the Pentium 4, Celeron and AMD Athlon 64). This heat is then transferred up the four pipes into the fin coolers above the baseplate. A rotary fan is used in order to remove the heat more affectively than a standard on top fan design.
This is the smart control circuitry that Gigabyte uses for the smart cooling system. This circuit system has a power input that is identical to a FDD power connector which is how the unit gets its power. Beside this is a 3 pin input connector. This is where the RPM control unit is connected. When connected you can place the RPM control unit at the front or back of the case. If the unit is not connected, the fan will run at full RPM no matter what which is as loud as a regular vacuum cleaner.
Now we see the RPM control unit. You can either have this in a spare 3.5 drive bay for front access or if you have none free, simply swap the potentiometer over to the I/O plate and she fits into a spare PCI slot.
Here we see the retention brackets. From left to right we have the AMD Athlon XP clips, in the middle the two clips for the Pentium 4 and on the right we have the clip for the AMD Athlon 64 CPU.
Gigabyte also includes some thermal paste. This is simple Silicon Dioxide paste which in all honesty should be replaced for some higher quality AS3 or something similar with much better heat transfer properties.
