Cooler Installation Is Simple Now

With the launch of the Nocona processors, Intel also added several features to their platforms:

The CPU coolers are no longer mounted on the motherboard, but are screwed into a back plate on the chassis.

Here you can see the holes that are required for mounting the coolers properly.

The CPU coolers need to be clearly larger now, but do without the inconvenient retention mechanism. Instead of that, the heat sinks are directly attached to a back plate of the chassis, using holes in the motherboard. Now, it's barely possible to damage the motherboard during heat sink installation any more.

The fan header now has four pins and offers temperature based control.

The four-pin fan header finally allows for measuring the CPU temperature. Hence, the fan speed can be adjusted ideally in order to widely reduce unnecessary noise.