Date:
Friday , June 21, 2002
Author:
Kyle Bennett
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Thoroughbred OCing

A quick look at what the 1800+ TBred might get you with the right cooling.

continued...

Breaking the TBred:

We then switched to some less expensive HSFs. I also jacked the Vcore up a notch to 1.95 Vcore. My thinking here is that if one of the mainstream coolers can work at 1.95 volts, you would have a better chance and getting one to work at your house too.

The Vantec 6027D was the first one we chose as this has been a favorite budget cooler that we like to recommend. As the core temp started to climb into the 175F range with the stock fan, our Prime95 test quickly crashed. Obviously, not for the TBred and you have to keep in mind that this cooler is only rated to handle up to 1.4GHz on an Athlon system anyway, but it was worth a try.

Next up is the CoolerMaster HCC-002 with stock fan. While its temperatures reached the 175F level as well, it did not immediately crash Prime95 but then finally fell as did the Vantec.

I was looking around for some of the older coolers to see what coolers might be found as a bargain that could do the job and I found an old Global Win CAK38 on the shelf. This was really the first copper cooler in retail. Uh, it ain't working our for the TBred either. NEXT!

A CoolerMaster HHC-001 with stock fan spotted in the hall closet! This one has got to be good as it has heatpipes built right in, right? While I am not so sure the heatpipes actually do anything to make the cooler a more efficient unit, as it did crash Prime95 after testing for a while. The core temperatures got up to the 170F mark though. While it worked somewhat, I don't think I am going to take it to the stability bank if you know what I mean.

I found an Akasa Silver Mountain 2 that was new in the box and rated for 2200+ speeds. I am guilty of not having ever looked at this unit. It is a hell of a nice heatsink. It gave me the feeling just from seeing it that it would work. Sure enough, with the stock fan at 7000 RPMs, we scored stability at about 168F. I don't think a lesser fan would work here either and that while our short test did not crash it would be a stretch to call the system stable.

Having done the Thermalright article this week I had the SK6 out and on my desk. It proved to be the best unit yet at 159F with a 7K fan. Seeing how I know you guys that need your peace and quiet and would be mailing me about it, I tried a 5500 RPM and the temp quickly climbed above 170 and it crashed. I had actually expected that to work, but air flow is king when it comes to air cooling, whodathunkit?

If the SK6 would not make a go of it with the 5500 RPM 60mm fan than how bout the newest and bestest SLK-800? Nope, no go at 5500. Strapping a 7000 RPM fan on proved successful, but was back to being noisy. The combination would keep the temp under 155F or so. I did find an old 80MM Sunon fan that the owner of Azzo gave me a couple years ago. This fan seems to move a ton of air and while you can hear it at 53dBA, it is hardly what you would call loud. Also it is not a high pitch sound either. "KD1208PTBX-6A" is the part number of the fan and I found them for sale over at Plycon.

Even though AMD has touted the TBred as "smaller, cooler, faster", you might take that with a grain of salt. I have some smaller low profile Alpha server coolers that I use here in the office with low RPM fans installed. I have been using these to test AMD CPUs at stock 1.53GHz levels for a few months now. They work and are not noisy. These same coolers would not allow us to run the 1.53GHz TBreds at stock speeds and voltages without causing system errors. Amazing how decreasing the surface area of the die by 40% will do that eh?

This article is certainly not meant to be the "OCers TBred Guide". I wanted to pass along to you what information we have found out here this week. It looks as if we very much will have some new AMD Athlons to OC with TBred cores but it looks like it is not going to be as easy as it was in the past. These damn things run hot! And do keep in mind that we had the voltage pumped a little high as well so our temp numbers may be a bit inflated.

Still in order to be OCing these new TBreds you had better bring a very solid heatsink and fan to move mass amounts of air if our sample 1800+ ends up being typical of what we will be seeing in the marketplace. I would say your target is to keep your TBred at 155F or lower and it seems like lower will cost you some noise for sure.

Did I just hear the price of water cooling kits going up all over the country or was that just my imagination? Na, I must be hearing things. Article Image