I went ahead and installed this heatsink to my normal testbed and I am glad to say that this clip is very good. This clip is not as good as the original Gladiator because it requires a screwdriver but it is better because it uses all of the tabs rather than one like the old Gladiator did. Overall I like this clip a lot and had no problems or bad feeling about my screwdriver slipping off and damaging my motherboard during installation.
I will be using an EPoX 8K9A2+ with my Athlon XP 1800+ (1.53GHz) and will be using Motherboard Monitor to get the temperature readings of the CPU. This was done by setting motherboard monitor to “Winbond Diode 2” which will read the on-die thermal diode of the XP. I will be using Arctic Silver 3 as the thermal compound because it is the best on the market. Idle temperatures were taken while idling in the BIOS and the load temperatures were achieved by using Prime95 which put the CPU up to 100% load.
Test Bed:
- EPoX 8K9A2+
- 1800+ Athlon XP
- 60GB Seagate Barracuda IV HDD
- Corsair 512MB PC3200
- Abit Geforce 4 Ti4200 OTES 8x AGP 128MB
- PcToys VGA MAXX Heatpipe Cooler
- Cooler Master ATC-101-SX2
- Generic 300w PSU
- Sound Blaster Live! Value
- ATi TV Wonder VE
- Plextor 40x12x40 CDRW
- Plextor PX-504A DVD+RW (review to come)
- pioneer 16x DVD
After installing the heatsink I booted up my computer and went into the BIOS right away to get the idle temperature. I can say that this fan is quite loud just like that of a Delta. After idling in the BIOS for about 20 minutes I got a idle temperature of 34 degrees Celsius. I then booted into Windows and ran Prime95 for about 15 minutes. After getting the CPU to load it came to be 39 degrees Celsius which is a really nice temperature. The heatsink did a really good job cooling my CPU but it was very loud which I didn’t like.
Conclusion
I am pretty pleased with this heatsink because it did a good job cooling my CPU and was really easy to install. The one thing I really didnt like about this heatsink nor any other for that matter is that it was too loud. This could be easily fixed by changing the fan however the stock one is loud. Also the base of the heatsink could have been finished better so that it had a nicer shine to it. Even though a better finish on the base may not have dropped the temperatures at all it would have been nice to see. I know this wasnt a very long review but there really isn’t much more to say. Overall I am pretty pleased with this product and am giving it a 7/10. I would like to thank OCZ for sending me this heatsink. I will have another OCZ heatsink review soon as well as a big giveaway of many heatsinks!
Pros
- Performs well
- Good clip
- Thermal compound included
Cons
- Loud
- Base could have been finished better
