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AMD Ships Heavy Duty Cooling With Latest Processor

Posted by Hemos on from the keep-it-cool dept.

jmke writes "With the increasing heat output of recent processors both Intel and AMD are shipping larger and heavier heatsink/fan combo's to cool them down. AMD has now incorporated heat pipe technology, which is usually only found in more expensive third party CPU cooling solutions. This test compares the new heatsink to a popular 3rd party product and it turns out that the new AMD unit is very impressive: high performance and silent operation from a free CPU cooler? AMD has done it! Now if only Intel would follow."

15 of 63 comments (clear)

  1. Wow! by war3rd · · Score: 4, Funny

    That's cool (sorry).

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  2. Oblig. slashdot whine by eclectro · · Score: 3, Funny

    Yes, but I like using my pc as a space heater.

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    Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
    1. Re:Oblig. slashdot whine by Bin_jammin · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Your pc will still be generating heat, it will just be radiating it more efficiently, without requiring a vacuum cleaner of a fan to generate enough cooling airflow.

    2. Re:Oblig. slashdot whine by ArsonSmith · · Score: 2, Funny

      Patrick: "Gee Sponge Bob, It's going to take longer to heat up space than we thought."

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  3. Nice, but... by squoozer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...when do we hit the hit wall. I know that we can got for liquid cooling etc etc but we must surely be approaching the point where processors can't get much fast simply because the cooling solutions are becoming impractical.

    Fair enough there will be some people that will be happy to have cryo units strapped to the side of their boxen but I think most computers are already a little on the large side considering what's in them.

    I suppose one thing that hasn't been done on a large scale yet is ducted inputs and outputs. I imagine having the ability to draw in cooler air from outside the case would make for a fair advantage but this would require a redesign of the basic case which manufacturers are loathed to do.

    I would be interested to know if anyone has studied this problem and come to any conculsions about whether will will hit the limit of Moore's law first or just be unable to cool a processor first.

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    1. Re:Nice, but... by faloi · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I imagine having the ability to draw in cooler air from outside the case would make for a fair advantage but this would require a redesign of the basic case which manufacturers are loathed to do.

      Intel has a spec for TAC (Thermally Advantaged Chassis) that a lot of vendors are conforming to. It's basically a design guide that offers recomendations to ensure good air flow.

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      "It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
    2. Re:Nice, but... by arivanov · · Score: 5, Informative

      Unless I am mistaken there is no intention to hit the wall as far as AMD is concerned.

      AMD has not increased the heat output for quite a while. Their CPUs still produce the same heat. IIRC it is 65, 85 or 110 depending on the submodel for Athlon and Opteron. If their CTO is to be believed they do not intend to change any of these values anytime soon. They will ship 110 for people who do not care, 85 for ones who kind'a care and 65 for blades and small form factor. They intend to increase the performance while keeping to one of these "sweet spots" for all three types.

      Simply the market has demanded quieter and quieter PCs lately. As a result Intel went the BTX route which provides lower noise and better cooling due to a new case design. AMD dropped the noise on their coolers by changing the cooler design at least twice over the last 2 years. Possibly more times. This is from looking at upgrade leftovers I have left which are not that many so they do not make a statistically significant sample.

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    3. Re:Nice, but... by freidog · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well, the dual core parts are the first to use the 110W TDP, the older FX S939 parts were 104W so it's not a major increase but a creeping power usage.
      AMD has been trying to retail compatability with all S939 boards, including the early NF3 and K8T800 Pro boards. I don't know AMD's original requirements for the current the motherboard should be able to supply to the CPU, but I do know the dual core parts can draw about 10A more than the original highest power parts on S939. That may be one factor that's driving AMD's thermal envolopes.
      We'll see if AMD keeps thermal requirements in check when the move to their new socket this spring where they can mandate huge amperage requirements again (looking forward for their 65nm parts).

      And now for something completely different
      why is this a story? All of the retail dual core AMD chips come with heat pipe coolers. It's been this way for months. The X2 3800+ that's only an 89W part ships with a heat pipe cooler as its stock cooler.

  4. Re:Still waiting... by pslam · · Score: 2, Informative

    Current generation Athlon 64 X2's are already like this. Externally, they look like a big heat spreader. The heat sink makes contact with a very large area, and the retail cooling solution is surprisingly quiet and efficient. Certainly cools a lot better than the stuff they shipped with Athlon XP 3200+.

  5. Go down to Boxmart.. by skayell · · Score: 2

    Just go down to your local discount retailer and buy one of those cheap mini-refrigerators. Stick your CPU in there.

  6. Re:Still waiting... by ivan256 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I want to see a chip that integrates a heat spreader directly into the package, so you have some more space to interface for a bigger, more bad-ass heatsink or even heat pipe.

    Let me guess... You haven't bought a new CPU in over two years...

    Both the Athlon 64s and Pentium 4 processors do exactly that, and have since those particular product lines were introduced.

  7. Wonder why AMD would do this by Dr.+Spork · · Score: 3, Informative
    I have a bit of experience building AMD socket939 systems and I always thought even the old heatsinks were a bit overkill. Athlon 64's are so damn efficient that the stock heatsink is always cool to the touch. Frankly, the stock fan runs much faster than it needs to. I imagine that the point of this fancier heatsink, which comes with an RPM regulator, is to make a quieter system. I wholeheartedly support that. But it really should be Intel that's making fancy retail heatsinks, with the insane temperatures generated by their Prescotts and Xeons!

    I'm sure Newegg will soon be full of reviews about how high you can overclock an Athlon using this retail heatsink. It almost seems like AMD is encouraging them... and I wouldn't be surprised if the Athlon's widespread fame as an excellent overclocker contributes to the increased market share that AMD is enjoying. But I also wouldn't be surprised if overclocking eats into the sales AMD's higher-margin models.

    Maybe the solution is to bundle these fancy heatsinks only with their upmarket processors ($350 and up) so as to allow even them to run at a substantial overclock.

    1. Re:Wonder why AMD would do this by TheCRAIGGERS · · Score: 2, Insightful

      But I also wouldn't be surprised if overclocking eats into the sales AMD's higher-margin models.

      I don't really think it eats into it that much. The people that can afford the $1,000 FX chips either have money to burn and could care less about overclocking, or they are the type of person that seriously cares about getting that last 2 frames per second in their favorite FPS game... which means they will happily overclock it so they can get 3 instead of 2. The kind of person that thinks in terms of "best bang for the buck" won't be buying a FX chip either way, they'll buy the $200 cpu that is only 10% slower.

  8. It is. by ichigo+2.0 · · Score: 5, Informative

    With AMD banning retail sale of OEM processors, they're getting harder and more expensive to find. Most places here sell retail at or below OEM prices, so I think it is correct to say that the cooler is essentially free.

  9. Re:Free? by nmos · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Well, considering the fact that you also get a 3 year warranty with the retail boxes

    That's not much of a risk since cpus pretty much never die from any cause that would be covered under warranty.