X-bit labs

Battle of the Titans: Super Coolers from Scythe, Thermaltake and Zalman Face to Face (page 13)

Category: Coolers

by Doors4ever

[ 10/21/2005 | 11:44 AM ]

I had never come across the problem of poor contact between a cooler and an LGA775 processor before, but I had mostly used Zalman CNPS7700Cu and 7000 models. A special feature of the fastening of Zalman coolers I had not noticed before is that it locks the cooler’s position firmly. The cooler is fastened with screws in two points and the clip can move up and down but not sideways. The Scythe Shogun (as well as other coolers I’m testing in this review) is not firmly fixed on the socket as the Zalman CNPS9500 LED. Although the pressure of the Shogun on the CPU is the strongest of the tested coolers, its fastening permits the cooler to deflect sideways from the ideal position right above the center of the processor. Could it be then that the cooler failed the tests because it was not installed exactly above the center of the socket and because the CPU’s position was tilted?

By the way, I found a Socket LGA775 of another design – from the less known Lotes Company.

The concept is the same, but the frame has lobes above the center of the processor. As a result, the processor is positioned horizontally relative to the mainboard’s PCB.

Unfortunately, Foxconn’s LGA775 sockets are much more popular than Lotes’ ones.

So I don’t know if I should blame Intel who introduced its new socket or Foxconn who makes sockets that permit the processor to be positioned unevenly or Scythe who manufacturers the Shogun cooler with the inconvenient fastening. Or should I put all the blame on my own clumsy hands? Well, even if it was my own fault, I “managed” to install the cooler wrongly two times. I think some other people may have the same situation, so the cooler’s fastening should be improved exactly for such clumsy users as I am.

So, I tried to test the Scythe Shogun cooler a third time. For once I placed it facing towards rather than leftwards. This placement is acceptable since the air is driven towards the power supply. It is especially good if the PSU is equipped with a large 120mm fan. The disadvantage of this placement is that the warm air from the graphics card will be going through the cooler, but it didn’t matter in my tests (on an open testbed and with a cold graphics card from Matrox).

Perhaps it was the non-standard orientation of the cooler or I was just very, very careful during the installation, but there were no problems with the contact and the cooler passed my tests. I even checked it outside the thermal chamber first (to make sure the installation had gone right): the CPU temperature was about 41.5-42.5°C in the Idle mode and about 60 .5- 61.5°C under the S&M load, the room temperature being 23.5°C . In the thermal chamber, when the environmental temperature was 30°C the Idle and Burn temperatures of the CPU were 48-49 and 65.5-68.5°C , respectively.