Most of you probably already know about the Alpha PAL 8045, it is very large and can be very effective. The Alpha PAL 8045 is made of 6063 Aluminum w/ Embedded Copper 1100 or 1020 and is anodized black. The heatsink has an 80mm base which is very large, it also weighs 520 grams which is very heavy especially when you put a fan on. This can be a problem because a lot of motherboards do not have the space required to fit this massive heatsink.If your motherboard does not have the 4 mounting holes needed for this heatsink you will not be able to use it.
The Alpha PAL 8045 heasink comes in a pretty plain box with the Alpha logo on it.
The heatsink comes with a lot of hardware because of the way that it needs to me mounted onto the motherboard. The left picture is all of the mounting hardware for the heatsinnk and the right picture is the hardwar to attach the fan to the heatsink.
The Alpha PAL 8045 also comes with instructions on how to install it, they are pretty well written and easy to understand.
Like I mentioned before this heatsink is huge, I can already tell just by looking at it that it is going to be a tight squeeze, you can also see the reflection of my screwdriver on the base of the heatsink. It is finished pretty well however they are some noticeable swirl marks, lapping this heatsink might be a good idea you could probably get a few degrees of by doing so.
The Alpha PAL 8045 comes with a white shroud which goes on the top of the heatsink to create more air pressure.
Installation of this heatsink takes some time and care, to install the needed hardware you are going to have to remove your motherboard from your case. When you have it removed you are going to need to attach the mounting lugs to the motherboard by placing them thorough the washers and then attaching the nuts to the threads on the back of the motherboard. You should use 2 pliers to tighten the lugs onto the motherboard but don’t tighten them too much, you may damage your motherboard.
After you have the hardware attached to the motherboard you will need to get the 4 silver colored screws, 4 springs, and 8 nylon washers. You need to put a washer, then spring, then another washer onto each screw so it looks like the one below. After you have all 4 ready drop them into the heatsink.
Now that I have all of the hardware ready, I put the heatsink onto the socket of the motherboard and screwed the 4 screws down. When you screw the screws in you will want to do it in an “X” pattern tightening the screws in a diagional pattern. You may also want to hold the mounting lugs with a pair of pliers because they started to spin before the screws were tight enough. As you can see from the below pictures the heatsink almost doesn’t fit. The capacitors around the socket are actually being pushed a little so that I could fit this Alpha on.
After you have the heatsink secured to the motherboard you can put the shroud back onto the heatsink and then attach your 80mm fan. To attach the fan to the heatsink you will use the gold colored screws and metal washers. I will be using an 80mm 80CFM Delta for the testing of this heatsink.
Test Bed
- AOpen AK77 Pro(A)-133
- 1.2Ghz Thunderbird
- 256MB Crucial PC2100
- Asus Geforce 2 GTS 64MB
- Globalwin YCC-8870 case
Like always I will be using Artic Silver 3 for testing, I will also be using an external Compunurse thermal probe for the temperature readings. To get the idle temperatures I booted up the computer and let it idle for about 20 minutes. To get the load temperatures of each speed I used Prime 95 for about 20 minutes.
As you can see this heatsink performs really well, I was expecting it to be better, but I think it is due to the fact that my thermal probe not quite right. I reseated the heatsink 3 times and got different results each time. A load temperature of 40 degrees Celsius is still really good though.
Conclusion:
The Alpha PAL 8045 is a great performer and has a lot to offer to an overclocker. The only real negative aspect of this heatsink is the fact that it is so large that it will not fit on all motherboards and that it is difficult to install. If your motherboard does not have the room due to capacitors being in the way it is possible in some cases to mod the heatsink by cutting it. If you want a good heatsink which can cool your CPU really well and you have enough room on your motherboard, I would really recommend this one to you. Overall I would give this heatsink a 8/10, and I would like to thank Case-Mod for sending this heatsink to me to review.
Pros:
- Great performance
- Great price ($31.99)
- Uses mounting holes
- Instructions are easy to follow
Cons:
- Difficult to install
- Will not fit all motherboards
- No thermal compound included