To test these new Alpha coolers, I enlisted the help of Lowlight
over at
Hardcoreware. I didn't have a Coppermine system available to test these
coolers with and Lowlight was kind enough to let me do the testing on his setup.
The Coppermine used was a Flip Chip P3-550. It was installed on
a IWill Slotket and Tyan 1854 motherboard. A temp probe was attached near the
core of the Coppermine. Temp readings are sent to an AMK E2C system monitor.
This unit allowed me to monitor the CPU temp on the fly.
The Coppermine 550 was overclocked to 770Mhz. The test consist
of running Prime 95 and Unreal Tournament for 30 minutes each. The average temp
is shown. Just for comparison the same tests were ran on the stock Coppermine
cooler.
|
Cooler type |
Idle |
UT |
Prime 95 |
| FIN Alpha |
30.4C |
30.9C |
31.6C |
| PIN Alpha |
30.2C |
30.4C |
30.9C |
| Stock Cooler |
35.2C |
36.3C |
37.2C |
The two Alphas performed very close to each other, with slightly
better performance for the PIN Alpha. Both units easily beat the stock Intel
cooler by a wide margin.
Of course this means dick if the new coolers don't allow your
CPU to run at higher speeds. After all, that's why we buy these coolers for.
With the stock heatsink, the highest the Coppermine 550 would overclock to was
770Mhz. That's pretty good performance. With either Alphas installed, the P3-550
went all the way to 825Mhz! Does an extra 55Mhz justify a $35 cooler? It does
to me!
Alpha has done a great job of these new Coppermine coolers.
Either unit will give you outstanding performance. Which one you get should
depend on what kind of motherboard you have. If you have a socket 370
motherboard, go for the PIN Alpha. If you have a Slot 1 motherboard, then the
FIN Alpha may be a better choice as it doesn't block off as many DIMM Slots.
Either way, you're going to get one great cooler.
Priced at $35 each, these are among the most expensive coolers
you can buy, but the best is never cheap. The clincher to this deal? These
Alphas will work on normal Celerons as well as Coppermine Pentium IIIs.
The Goods
The Bads
Rating: 9/10
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