Intel beats AMD in one area -- any cooling suggestions?

6-11-2003 | Me

[razorbak]

I am actually a big fan of AMD. It is not only the best processor for the money, but the best period, IMHO. But one thing I'll have to hand to Intel. I'm upgrading an Intel system for a friend and I ordered a retail Celeron 1.7ghz. This is the first Pentium type processor I've looked at up close since the old Socket 7 days [I think that's the one that Intel and AMD both could use a few years ago.]

Anyway, the heat sink and fan assembly on the Intel chip is massive compared to the dinky heat sink and fan on the AMD Athlon XP 1700+ I bought for myself last year. You could make two or three of my AMD 1700 heatsinks out of the Celeron 1.7 heatsink. It's no wonder that Intel chips tend to run cooler. Why doesn't AMD put a quality heat sink and fan with their chip. To do so, at their cost, would add very little to the cost of the processor [just look at the tiny difference in price between OEM units and retail right now]. I did buy an aftermarket heat sink, a Coolermaster CPU HHC-001 PURE COPPER heat pipe heat sink with a LOUD little 6800rpm fan on it and Antec Arctic Silver compound. And I still don't run all that cool. I had to slightly underclock my processor to keep it cool enough. By the way, I have a 120mm blowhole fan in the side of my case and two 80mm exhaust fans pushing hot air out the back, as well as an Antec 350w dual fan power supply. Any suggestions short of water cooling? Also, are the newer Athlon XP chips, especially the ones with the Barton core running any cooler? My setup also consists of: my board, an ECS K7S5A, and 512mb of PNY 2100 DDR memory.

[razorbak]

How is this relevant to FR? We wouldn't be here on FR if it weren't for our Personal Confusers, would we?

[razorbak]

Gettin' this thread off the ground BUMP!

[razorbak]

Shameless Self-BUMP!

[gaspar]

Doesn't Transmeta have a superior chip to these two?

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Don't use the AMD fans, they don't do the job. Get a Volcano or one of the other great ones;

Reviews of computing equipment here:

HARDOCP

OFFICIAL BUMP(TOPIC)LIST

[razorbak]

Trolling for Replies BUMP!

[Dead Corpse]

I have no idea what you are doing, but the chips I test with NEVER get that hot. We aren't even testing with copper heat sinks... just the aluminum ones. We are however using the recommended Shin-Etsu G-750 grease. Using anything else voids the warrenty by company policy.

The FSB 400 Bartons run the same coolers as all the other chips in the XP line. The Opterons and Athlon64's run beefier heat sinks and better fans. OEM should do just fine though.

Seriously, I'd check to make sure your voltage settings are correct.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

How hot are you running.

You may have a bad motherboard!

[Dead Corpse]

I prefer Toms Hardware Guide.

OEM cooling solutions work fine on the ones I run in my tests. Overclockers however require more than stock cooling. Water-cooled still rules the roost there.

[shadowman99]

I read on /. recently that AMD has made use of thermal paste and substitute cooling fans a violation of it's EULA.

[Dead Corpse]

Correct.

Cooling solution reference page for Athlon XP.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

You have to be kidding!

[Dead Corpse]

XP Heatsinks Whitepaper. pdf format.

[Dead Corpse]

/. article.. Only partially correct. I use Shin-Etsu G-750, not 749... in all of my testing. A very thin coating is all that is required. On some of the OEM heatsinks, the thermal adhesive that is used is pretty useless. A small dab is all that is required. Too much and it'll not only make a mess, but will possibly cause and over-heat condition.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I am looking at this , current fan is loud but temp is only 42C degrees! AMD 2000+ on Gigabyte 7vaxp board with SCSI 10K Maxtor drive!

Corsair Hydrocool 200

[Brett66]

I'm running a XP2500 Barton overclocked to 2 GHz on a MSI K7N2L mobo with a Taisol fan. My CPU hasn't risen above 53C yet and the fan is very quiet.

Taisol CPU fans