Will I lose much, downgrading heatsink

[Beavis]

Do you think I will lose much if I downgrade my Thermalright AX-7 to a GC-68 heatsink from SVC. The reason I want to switch is I have to move it alot between my house and my parents house when I visit and the trip is about 225 miles. The Thermalright is too heavy for this. My current temps are 41 deg idle and 49 deg under load with the Thermalright. I only overclock a little bit because I have networking equipment hooked up so overclocking is not a big issue. What do you think?

Specs:

AMD XP 1700 + Thermalright AX-7 + AS3 + Panaflo 39CFM
Abit KR7A-Raid
Western Digital 40GB, 7200RPM, ATA100
ATI Radeon 8500 OEM
512MB Kingmax PC2700
Lite-on 32x CDRW
Pioneer 16x DVD-ROM
Channel Well 400w PSU
AudioExcel 6 Channel Sound Card
WinXP Pro
21" Sony Trinitron
Cheiftech Tower Case DX-01WD

 

[gone_fishin]

Postpone further overclocking till the traveling is over with, or take the other sink with you in your luggage if you just can't help yourself to overclock

 

[RoadWarrior]

Hmmm tower case and a 21 inch monitor? I think the heatsink is the least of your portability problems

Road Warrior

 

[Iron Hawk]

Yeah, win XP is heavy too. j/k Like Warrior said, i dont thing you are going to notice a portability diff by getting a slightly smaller HS.

 

[cmcquistion]

I used an AX-7 on a system I was building for a while. I was impressed with the performance, but I wanted to see if it was much better than a SVC GC68 (my heatsink of choice). I replaced it with the SVC GC68 and couldn't tell a bit of difference.

I say, give it a shot. It's only a $6 heatsink.

BTW, this heatsink is also sold under the name Galaxy GC118, SVC computers just renames it when they sell it. I've seen it elsewhere listed as a Galaxy 118, but the cheapest I've come across is $6.

 

[wildfrogman]

To get the same performance as the ax-7 with 39 cfm fan with the gc68 you will need to use around a 53ish cfm 80mm fan to make it up. But the ax-7 has a 3 prong on each side clip which is alot better though.

 

[Silversinksam]

My best advise is to get a heatsink that is mounted through the motherboard like an AlphaPAL8045 or Swiftech MCX462-U

Reason I say this is they cost a bit more but the heatsink is affixed to the mainboard with bolts and definitly better in transit.

 

[Tismedt]

I think his main concern here is the weight of the AX-7. If he is moving his rig alot the possibility of the AX-7 coming loose and terrorizing his case innards is a real possibility. If it is possible to lay the case on its side I think you stand a better chance of the hs staying put. The triple clamp is strong as i'm sure you know and will take alot of abuse. But driving (assuming here) 200+ miles is a risk I would rather not take. You might try the galaxy but dont expect anywhere near the preformance of a AX-7

 

[Beavis]

Thanks everyone for the help. I guess I will go ahead a get the GC-68 since I don't want to take the risk. I like the Thermalright but removing it every time I want to move my computer would be a pain not to mention all the AS3 I will be wasting. I'll get some stronger case fans to compensate.

 

[RoadWarrior]

I would see if I could use the clip from the AX7 though. I would be less likely to worry about the AX7 coming loose with a clip like that, than vibrating and loosening off some of the CPU socket pins. Dunno what the clip's like on that heatsink, but on most cheaper ones they are like tinny single lug things, that let the hsf move about. I had a fairly light socket 7 heatsink come adrift from a clip like that moving across town, no damage was done though.

Road Warrior

 

[cmcquistion]

One piece of advice from experience with the GC68; take the fan off of the heatsink when you are mounting or dismounting it. If you don't, you may crack your CPU core trying to pry on the clip from an angle.

 

[wildfrogman]

Yes, very good point on installation of the gc68....take off that fan. Because it is much more safe to install without the fan. A bit of a pain but well worth installing the fan after the install.