So, I was in the middle of setting up a uh a test bench that I'm going to be
using over the next little while here for an upcoming TechTips project. You
can see I'm using all of the uh the best and latest stuff sort of thing. I've got
an EVGA classified X58 4-way SLI board.
I mean, the video card's not exceptional. It's a GTX 260, but I've
got the OCZ Vertex Limited Edition in there as well. Anyway, I came across
something that I thought was sort of worth mentioning, and it's a new Intel
stock cooler. So, you can see that this cooler is is a heat pipe design. Unlike
previous Intel stock coolers, it has uh four heat pipes that each run down
through the base. 1 2 3 4 and then up to the top. And you can see it's got like a
nice little Intel cap. And another thing that it also has is it has a quiet
versus a performance mode on it. Much like their old extreme edition cooler,
which actually if I go over to my work PC, I have one
of those in my uh in my work PC. So, you
can see that one is a blue LED fan and
it has a little switch right about there that allows you to turn the RPMs up or
down. And let me see if I can
Not sure if you could hear the difference in sound, but I have it in quiet mode for the most part. Anyway,
let's go back over here. So, anyway, this is taking a while to focus here.
Let's see if it can do it. Come on. There you go. Okay, so it has what
appears to be a 92mm fan, 4 pin PWM
design, and unlike previous Intel stock coolers, this is the best part. I think
it actually uses a back plate to mount
to the CPU. So rather than relying on those push pins, we've got it's a
plastic back plate, so there's nothing particularly great about it. It's it's
going to flex a little bit, but that's not going to matter because the most important thing is just that we're using
thumb screws which push through to a back plate rather than relying on
plastic push pins. I think that pretty much covers everything I wanted to say
about it. But there you have it. That's uh clipped on there. It's a new Intel
stock heat sink. Oh, and I should do the obligatory like finger shininess shot
here. So, you can see the bottom is lapped to be very, very, very shiny.
See, you can see my camera now.
Another interesting thing I noticed about this cooler, and I apologize in advance for the terrible lighting that's
going on right now. Just blew a breaker, and the light above me is is actually
out. But another thing I noticed is like a lot of aftermarket heat sinks these
days, you can see that the new Intel stock cooler is bowed. You can tell by
the very bare patch in the middle where the CPU heat sink is making very, very
strong contact with the processor itself. So, all I did was tighten the
thumb screws down as far as they go, which as far as I can tell is what you're supposed to do. And you can see I
got very much more buildup around the outside and a very, very good contact
patch right in the middle. Very cool.