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By Andrew Sametz |
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Perhaps you're wondering how anyone could make money selling aftermarket heatsinks and fans. After all, every boxed processor and retail graphics card you sell comes with some form of reference cooling, which you already know is guaranteed to do its job. But as the automotive aftermarket industry proves with its turbochargers, wheels, and exhaust systems, there's always someone out there willing to pay a premium for that extra bit of customization. Serving a Purpose While it may be true that the stock coolers bundled with AMD's and Intel's boxed products serve their purpose, they certainly don't represent best-of-breed cooling technology. Why should your customers care? "Processors that run at lower temperatures last longer," says Zalman USA's Eric Miao. Even running at stock frequencies, lower operating temperatures help extend the lives of today's super-hot chips. So without even exploring some of the other benefits of advanced cooling, you can swap out reference heatsinks on your white box systems and immediately offer a more robust platform. A solid cooling system does more than just make hot silicon last longer, though. Several other considerations affect the heat situation. For example, the more power a given processor consumes, the more heat it dissipates. Naturally, an increase in heat output necessitates better cooling to compensate. Top-end offerings from AMD and Intel breach the 100W barrier and consequently necessitate super-efficient copper coolers with variable-speed, high-output fans that can keep up with sudden heat spikes. Whenever those fans are forced to accelerate, they generate more noise. The difference is appreciable, and I've had plenty of customers buy systems with perfectly capable reference coolers only to bring them back for something less intrusive. Building a Cooler At first glance, heatsinks and fans have a somewhat universal look and perform an identical function. Don't be fooled. Each design is engineered differently, from different materials, and for different applications. Most modern units feature a highly polished copper base surrounded by an array of aluminum fins and topped with a cooling fan. Such a generic composition is fueled by simple thermodynamics.
Of the substances with the highest thermal conductivity, copper represents the best performance at an economically viable price. Thus heatsinks with copper bases are able to absorb heat from a processor quickly. Aluminum is also a solid performer, plus it costs less. That's why most heatsinks feature predominantly aluminum construction. Then you have fans. By blowing air over the cooling mechanism, fans facilitate the forced convection needed to transfer heat from the cooler to air molecules. A larger fan, with its bigger blades, moves more air at lower rotations per minute than a smaller fan, translating into less noise. Recently manufacturers have started incorporating heat pipe technology into their most aggressive coolers, harnessing the virtues of phase change to move heat energy from the base directly to the fins. Accelerated dissipation helps higher-end chips, such as AMD's Athlon 64 FX-57, operate stably. Enthusiasts Lead the Way Cooling technology doesn't end with heatsinks by any stretch of the imagination. Enthusiasts demand more performance, hence the exotic and generally expensive liquid cooling kits, which work like the cooling circuit in a car. Contradictory to what you might think, some of those water cooling setups actually verge on mainstream and may appeal to specialty system integrators. There are obvious benefits and caveats associated with introducing water to white box systems. On the plus side, customers get significantly better cooling performance, enabling greater flexibility than any fan and heatsink combination. The kits also rely on larger fans to blow air through their radiators. As such, water cooling setups are usually very quiet. The fear of a leaky hose is what keeps most risk adverse users at bay.
Ease of use is understandably just as important to VARs who'd rather not worry about botched end-user installations. Zalman sells one of the most reseller-friendly water cooling products around, ideal because it's almost entirely external and operates sans fan. The Reserator 1 Plus improves on the company's previous kit with a VGA water block, quick-connect couplers, and an I/O bracket for neat installation. Universal motherboard compatibility is almost guaranteed thanks to bundled mounting hardware, ready for any Pentium 4/D or Athlon 64 processor. Installation is a piece of cake. The only real caveat is the product's $200+ price tag. Such is the cost for user friendliness and absolute silence. Corsair is readying its own external water-cooling contender, the Nautilus 500. Capable of dissipating 500W and similarly easy to install, the $150 kit is a lower-cost alternative that fits in smaller spaces. Expect availability mid-way through November. Of course, not all enthusiasts are willing to spend megabucks on an elaborate liquid cooling contraption. A top shelf heatsink is often much more attractive. Artic Cooling, a Swiss company making its debut in North America, offers several reasonably priced heatsink/fan combinations for both AMD- and Intel-based platforms. For example, the Freezer 64 leverages the power of copper heat pipe technology, reducing cost by using aluminum fins. And although 80 mm fans are often some of the loudest, Arctic Cooling's Freezer 64 is efficient enough to get away with super-low 2,200 RPM speeds, reducing temperatures by up to 20 degrees Celsius. Beyond its heat dissipation and acoustic performance, Arctic Cooling touts a reseller-friendly disposition.
"We offer six-year warranties on our cooler products," says Michele Scherrer, vice president of North American operations. "In the event that there is an issue with a product, distributors will issue replacements with our backing. Alternatively, distributors are stocked with spare parts, so if a customer needs to replace a faulty fan, they may do so free of charge and without returning their cooler." Arctic Cooling is also very proud of its user-friendliness. Thermal pads are pre-applied to its heatsinks, enabling easier installation. Larger fans and heat pipes improve efficiency, cutting back on noise. And finally, aggressive pricing on performance products falls well below many other premium brands. Going Fanless At the other end of the spectrum, passive heatsinks still represent a popular alternative for media center machines and office workstations. Because they are designed to run without fans, passive coolers offer the benefit of complete noiselessness and the caveat that they're limited in scope. A dual-core Pentium D or Athlon 64 X2 gives off lots of heat—as expected, given the extreme complexity of both chips. It should come as no surprise that they aren't intended to be passively cooled.
In fact, you'll be hard pressed to cool any desktop processor completely passively. SilverStone Technology's Nitrogon NT01 v2.0 is probably as close as you'll ever get. The NT01 v2.0 consists entirely of copper, which really allows it to transfer heat quickly. Three large heat pipes further improve performance. Despite its massive fin array, however, the NT01 does rely on some air flow, either from exhaust fans mounted on the rear of a chassis or a power supply fan. If neither is available, the heatsink's aluminum shroud does accommodate a pair of 60 mm fans. But that takes the fun out of passive cooling. If you'd like an easier avenue into passive cooling, check out Aerocool's VM-101, a video card heatsink that does its job without fans. It's built of aluminum and sports a pair of heat pipes for rapid heat transfer. Aerocool gives the VM-101 a max rating of 70W, so don't try passively cooling a GeForce 7800 GTX. Instead, stick to GeForce 6600's and Radeon X700-class cards. A Walk On The Wild Side Giant CPU heatsinks are quickly becoming the norm. Intricate graphics card coolers are also picking up traction. But what's this about entire cases engineered from the ground-up to dissipate power? Indeed Zalman's arsenal includes a pair of chassis architected with complete silence in mind. As you might imagine, they both make gratuitous use of steel and heat pipes. The flagship TNN 500AF is a true beast, weighing in at almost 60 pounds and priced in excess of a grand. It's bulky, yet classy, with black fins all along its periphery. Heavy-duty handles grace the top (giving you an indication of the TNN's weight) and locking casters enable mobility and height-adjustment.
When you open the case, it quickly becomes apparent that every single component plays its role in efficiently moving heat away from hot spots. A pure copper CPU block, compatible with almost any AMD or Intel chip, can transfer up to 150W of heat using six strategically placed heat pipes. A VGA block, which replaces your graphics card's stock cooler, employs three of the same pipes to move 75W. A smaller block rests atop the motherboard chipset, using five heat pipes to transfer 20W. Even the included 400W power supply, suitable for anything short of an SLI configuration, bleeds its heat into the heavy chassis panels. The craftsmanship behind Zalman's TNN 500AF is admirable. And despite its lofty price, you really do get a complete package. From mounting hardware to cooler components to a custom hard drive cage, Zalman leaves no stone unturned here. Zalman's emerging TNN 300 is functionally similar to the massive 500AF, only much smaller. The reduction has a couple of ancillary effects. First, it drops the price several hundred dollars. But it also restricts motherboard compatibility to mATX platforms. And because there's less surface area for dissipating heat, top-end processors and graphics cards aren't recommended. Instead, you'll want to pair the TNN 300 with GeForce 6600/Radeon X1600-class hardware and a media center operating system. Talking About the Future The future of cooling isn't cut and dry, meaning nobody can guarantee the heatsinks you inventory today will work on the upcoming generation of processors. However, we're facing some major changes from both Intel and AMD that stand to affect compatibility. On the AMD front, there's an impending move away from Socket 939 on the desktop to a new interface code-named M2 that will support DDR2 memory. Disclosures from company representatives suggest M2 will be very similar to Socket 939, though. And even if differences do exist, the retention mechanisms should maintain compatibility with your existing stock of coolers. Better still, the current plan is to maintain a consistent power envelope, meaning today's thermal solutions are robust enough to cope with tomorrow's Socket M2 chips. It's a different story entirely on the server side, where AMD plans to make some more serious changes to the Opteron interface. Intel's desktop future isn't quite as clear. Company CEO Paul Otellini revealed at its IDF trade show that next-generation 65 nm desktop chips would cut power consumption nearly in half to 65W. But there's still no information on the physical interface itself. Even if the coolers do change, expect Intel's upcoming architecture transition to enables smaller, quieter form factors. |
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