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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."

7 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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  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 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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  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. 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.