Heatsink test – Joe
SUMMARY: An effective cooling solution with moderate noise levels.
The good guys at Alpha were nice enough to send a sample of their PRE9060 Pentium 4 (LGA775) Heatsink to test. Note that this heat sink is designed only for LGA775 – the mounting gear uses the four holes surrounding the LGA775 socket and will not fit any other pattern.
The bare heatsink the very dense array of circular pins:
The base is a copper insert and has visible polishing ridges which I could slightly feel by dragging my fingernail over it:
Parts that ship with the unit includes a mounting bracket which uses the four hole surrounding the socket – this will require removal of the motherboard to mount.
Overall, this is typical ALpha – well built and substantial.
The Alpha was tested on the CPU Die Simulator which gives results that are unaffected by motherboard influences. This is a small die test – results with a LGA775 CPU will be somewhat better due to its heat spreader (the watt densities over the heat spreader are somewhat lower compared to the actual chip); however, for purposes of comparative rankings, I will test all heatsinks with the smaller die.
The fan used was an Oriental Motor #MD925A-12S, a 92 mm unit rated 45.9 cfm @ 3,400 rpm, 36 dBA. Alpha orients fans to blow out from the heatsink rather than in – there is no performance advantage to blowing into the heatsink, and in other tests, blowing in was marginally worse. To gauge the upper performance range, I also tested with a Vantec Tornado, a 92 x 38 mm rated at 119 cfm @ 4800 rpm – also screamingly loud.
| Thermal Grease |
Die Temp
|
Ambient Temp
|
Delta
|
Rank
|
| Oriental Fan, 45.9 cfm |
41.5 ºC
|
18.2 ºC
|
23.2 ºC
|
0.33
|
| Oriental Fan, 119 cfm |
39.7 ºC
|
18.1 ºC
|
21.6 ºC
|
0.31
|
Interesting to see that a very aggressive fan does not yield substantially better results. Die Simulator results place the Alpha PRE9060 in the upper rank of heatsinks tested to date (Heatsink Ranking).
Alpha’s PRE9060 Pentium 4 (LGA775) Heatsink is an effective cooling solution with moderate noise levels.
Thanks again to Alpha for sending this our way.
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- TennMax P3STF Pentium III Heatsink
- Alpha Killer Shootout
- Alpha PEP66T Revisited
Tags: Cooling
