Written
: 9/22/2000Thermaltake has certainly entrenched itself has a provider of good value
market heatsinks during the course of this year. For the budget minded,
Thermaltake's Golden Orb, has become one of the most popular cooling solutions
for socketed processors.
Unfortunately, Thermaltake ran into serious issues with AMD's new line of
socketed Duron's and Athlons. These chips have their die flipped onto the top of
the cpu package, similar to the Celeron2's and Pentium 3's. Different die
thickness, and differences in sockets have caused problems in mounting the
Golden Orb heatsinks to these new AMD cpu's, most notably resulting in people
cracking CPU die's. OUCH!!
Back to the drawing board, Thermaltake has released a new revision of their
popular Orb heatsink, dubbed the Chrome Orb. The differences are small, but
significant.
Specs:
| Thermaltake Chrome Orb | |
| Application | Socket 462/A |
| Dimensions | 69mm dia x 45mm tall |
| Clip Type | TCS09 Clip on Clip |
| Fan Size | 43x25mm 3-Wire |
| Rated Voltage | 12 volt |
| Noise Level | 29 dBA |
| Air Volume | 22 CFM |
| Rated Fan Speed | 5500 RPM |
| Bearing System | BALL BEARING |
| Interface Material | CHOMERICS T725 |
| Heat Sink Material | Aluminum 6030 |
| Fan Safety | UL/CE/CSA |
| Thermal Resistance | Theta ja=0.81c/w |
| Special Feature | Square base plate, fully contact chip rubber feet. |
You can see from the included pictures, that the Chrome
Orb, is umm....Chrome! ;) This has been done on purpose to allow it's two
different products to be differentiated from one another on sight. The base of
the new Orb has been expanded to allow it to sit on the plastic stabilizing
feet, that are found on Athlon/Duron processors, thereby reducing the likelihood
of rocking the heatsink hard to one side when mounting, which could lead to
cracking or breaking a corner.