A Cool Bunch: How To Put A Lid On The Die Temperature Of Your Athlon

Compact And Quiet Standard Cooler: Taisol CEK747092

Taisol's CEK747092 impresses not only with its low height of 37 millimeters, but also with its relatively quiet operating noise level of 50 dB(A).

The aluminum heat sink sports a run-of-the-mill standard profile: the cooling ribs are roughly 0.8 mm thick and 19 mm tall.

The underside of the CEK747092: a screwed-on copper plate.

A 3 mm thick copper plate is located on the underside to better distribute and dissipate heat. It is held in place with four screws. Thermal paste is applied between the plate and the heat sink in order to minimize the heat transmission resistance between the two different materials. The fan is affixed with two spring clips.

Though the CEK 747090's cooling capacity may be sufficient for the everyday operation of an Athlon 1.4 GHz, it doesn't seem to be the right one for overclocking experiments. AMD's recommendation for this cooler goes all the way up to the Athlon XP1800+.