CPU Cooler Charts 2008, Part 3 - Are Box Coolers any Good?

Off The Cheap End - Aluminum For Low-end CPUs

While the smaller Core 2 models receive box coolers with slower fans, Intel really cuts costs on the models it considers the low end. These would be the processors belonging to the Pentium DualCore E2100 series, although they, too, are based on the Conroe core. These models only come with an aluminum cooler.

At a glance you couldn't tell the box cooler of the Pentium DualCore series from that of its siblings.

Since aluminum is far cheaper than copper, there is a lot of potential to save cost here. Additionally, they can skip a very expensive production step, since they do not have to mill the aluminum frame to embed the copper core used in higher-end models for thermal reasons. Also, using aluminum has a positive effect on the cooler's weight: at only 330 grams, it is the lightest air cooler in the test field, and a full 106 grams lighter than the copper version.

The entire heatsink is made of aluminum.

Thanks to the low thermal power dissipation of the CPUs belonging to the Pentium DualCore line, even the aluminum versions of the cooler only need one of the slower fan models. Thus, the noise level is on par with that of the (slower) copper core version.

A core comparison - the copper core is countersunk into the aluminum heatsink to improve the cooler's thermal characteristics. The aluminum version does without such elaborate measures.

The cooling performance of the aluminum version is pretty much what you would expect from a designated low-end solution. Under full load the CPU gets so hot that it is forced to throttle its clock speed: we measured a processor temperature of nearly 98°C. The CPU's idle temperature lay at 54°C.