Heatsinks

[clocker]

Lynx,

I have been reading up on your Akasa HS (here and here are typical).

No offense, but nothing that I've seen would lead me to expect the very good results that you are reporting.
Have you made any other modifications that may be partially responsible?

Never exceeding 37 degC is a goal I would be very happy to achieve.

[lynx]

It seems strange that in the two links you gave, the first has results similar to mine and all that's been done is to remove the thermal pad, the second has poor results but he's taken all that trouble lapping the base etc.

My previous cpu (XP1700+) ran a lot hotter (around 45C) and I haven't made any other changes except possibly to improve the airflow through the case by tidying the cables a little.

Ambient temp is about 20C, and the way I've got my case positioned means that exhaust air can only go up the wall behind the desk and therefore can't be drawn back in.

Obviously there are differences between temperature sensors, so the absolute temp shown is a little subjective without verification from another source, so 37C shown on my pc could well be a few degrees higher on another machine, but it should not be dramatically different.

[clocker]

Lynx,

If 37c is your max observed temp, is your idle temp significantly lower?

I know what you mean about the veracity of case temp monitors...I'm sure that mine is not accurate, but I only use it to make relative comparisons , so it's fine...

[lynx]

I'm using speedfan to control the fan, so my idle temp is about 34C, with my desired temp set at 35C. I've set it so that minimum duty cycle for the fan is 5% which gives me a min fan speed of about 1800rpm. If I run the fan at full speed the idle temp drops to about 31C.

[SciManAl]

hmm clocker i am actually not impressed with the zalman (sp) it seemed to be in effiecent (my opinion), the fins were far away from the actual die, it seemed as though the heat had quite a ways way to travel... however ther are defintly more hard core HS (without fan) with really low TR (thermal resistance) this is what i think you should aim in the future is to try a really low TR HS and see what happens my water set up has a .24 TR and if you could get that or better in a HS then you would be really cool i would think...

the better the TR is the better the heat is actually gotten rid of... (how much the thing obsorbs versus passing along into the air...)

examples:

a bit more expensive brand that has very low TR
Same one a very intresting idea...
good example of micro fins

just a few to show, i think you won't get that much better results though with air cooling, i think you are reaching perfection...
(no joke i think you are getting to your peak with Air cooling, and the result is not bad at all)

[3RA1N1AC]

Originally posted by clocker@19 November 2003 - 13:30
The AMD actually works better than the high dollar Zalman.
So far, by two degrees.

...

I am surprised ( and somewhat dismayed ).

quite a while back, someone was asking on this board about which athlon heatsink to buy, and i advised that the stock HSF that comes with the retail chips is perfectly fine and, combined with a good thermal paste properly applied, it'll keep the CPU in the lower 40 degrees C. maybe not quite as cool or quiet as some other aftermarket ones, but it's definitely not a slouch. the guy just didn't want to believe it.

as for whether it really is better or worse than that Zalman HSF, there's always the random affect of each individual application of thermal paste. sometimes you get it right, sometimes you get it "less right." but i'd say the very high 30s or low 40s is about as low as any HSF combo is going to go with athlon XP chips, without some other extreme solution appended to it (like an air-conditioned case).