| Speed. Admit
it, that’s what it’s all about. You want the fastest CPU,
and then you want to push it even faster. 3ghz is for wimps; let’s
crank this baby up to 3.5ghz or more! But wait, you can’t do
that with the stock heatsink that came with the chip! What are you,
nuts! That CPU is going to generate enough heat to cook eggs, you
need some serious cooling. Short of shelling out big bucks for a phase-change
cooling system or water cooling you’re “stuck” with
air cooling.
Now don’t be ashamed, I would say over 95%
of the people out there are running air cooled systems, and there
is no shortage of air cooled heat sinks to choose from. Simply look
at the list of reviews hear at GruntvillE and you will see plenty
of them. However, the real question is, how good can air cooling
get? Already, the top of the line heatsinks use copper, one of the
best metals for conducting heat and they can’t really get
much bigger. So innovative design has come into play.
When
you speak to anyone about top-of-the-line heatsinks there are a
few names that always come up: ThermalRight, Swiftech, Alpha, Thermaltake
and CoolerMaster are just a few. Today, we take an in-depth look
at the latest copper behemoth from ThermalRight, the SLK-900U.
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GruntvillE.Com/ |
Yes, I did say
behemoth. Don’t believe me? Look at the pictures then look at
these specifications:
| Dimensions |
| L99 x W59
x H45 (mm) Top, without fan |
| L67 x W81
x H45 (mm) Bottom, without fan |
| Weight |
| 570g (heat
sink only; for AMD |
| 587g (heat
sink only; for Intel) |
For those of us who are metric-challenged those weights are about
1.25lbs, yes POUNDS. It is a big beast. |
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Some of the features that ThermalRight brags about on their website
are:
• All copper design for maximum performance
• Soldered fins to base to ensure effective contact
• 92mm stock fan for more cooling capability
• Screws through motherboard mounting for LAN party
• Both AMD socket A and Intel socket-478 compatible
Yes, that
does say it fits both AMD Socket A and Intel Socket 478 motherboards;
this is one of the very few heatsinks that does. However, if you
want to put the SLK-900U on a socket A motherboard, please check
the ThermalRight website for details. It will only fit on boards
that have the 4 mounting holes, and even then, it still might not
fit. ThermalRight has a listing of boards and what you might have
to do to get it to fit in your rig; it can be found HERE.
One of the other things that make the SLK-900U unique is that you
can mount just about any type of fan on it, from a 70mm to 92mm.
The “stock” fan that ThermalRight suggests is a Delta
92mm fan that moves an impressive 110.18CFM at a noisy 55dBA. However,
most vendors on the web sell the unit without a fan so you can pick
and choose which one suits your needs. For this review we will be
using a ThermalTake Smart Case Fan-2 80mm fan which at full speed
runs at 4800RPM, 48dBA, and moves 75.7CFM.
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