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How
do you properly cool a Pentium III ?
The
TennMax P3 TF Cooler
These days most
custom PC enthusiasts, tend to use some sort of third party Heat
Sink and Fan combination for proper cooling of their CPU. Stock Heat
Sink / Fans from Intel and other CPU vendors are usually only
adequate for operation of the CPU within normal specs. Obviously,
this is not something the average "overclocker" will be
satisfied with. Until now, there really haven't been many good
cooling solutions for the new Pentium III processor. TennMax,
a well known cooling solutions provider, has designed a new product
for the Pentium III that follows in the footsteps of their many
other innovative cooling products.
Click
the image for a closer look.
As you can see,
this unit appears to be constructed of very high quality polished
aluminum. It also has nice retention clips that push through the
original Pentium III front shell and lock into the body of the sink.
Just for
reference, see my custom Pentium III cooling project here for
instructions on how to remove your stock retail P3 heat sink.
All you then have to do is push the pins (make sure you have slipped
the supplied plastic washers over the pins first) of the retention
clips through the case and into the body of the sink. You may have
to drill or push out the old plastic Intel retention clips if the
tips are still stuck in the casing. This is a VERY easy task
however. The black pad on the sink makes solid contact with the CPU
chip itself. This pad is made of some sort of highly conformable
polymer material that actually bonds the sink to the chip when heat
is generated. It makes for an excellent thermal junction with the
sink and works very well.
Click
image for a larger view.
The unit itself
is a very dense pin construction and has two 5K RPM fans mounted on
the top. These fans are harnessed together into one three pin
intelligent power connector that plugs right into an available
header on your motherboard. This is a much neater solution than the
standard pig tail set ups you usually get with dual fan models these
days. As you can see in the above picture, on either side of the CPU
contact plate the sink is hollowed out so it doesn't make contact
with the CPU board or cache chips. I actually used some Gap
Pad to make contact with the cache chips and the sink. <-----(This
link also shows Gap Pad in action on a P3) As you might guess,
the P3 TF Cooler from TennMax is a much more elegant cooling
solution for your P3 than my custom approach in the above linked
article. Necessity
is the mother of invention, as they say, and it was all I had to
work with, at that time. Thanks TennMax for providing the creativity
and ingenuity of this product. So how does it perform you ask????
Here's a snapshot...
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