Burn, baby, burn

There is already an excellent review on the performance capabilities of this processor, so I will give my best subjective opinion on this processor and you can check out the other review for the technical information. I’m going to talk about the heatsink first, as it is part of the retail package, and then about the subjective factors of the processor.

One word describes this processor: HOT. Yeah, it’s got some pretty hot performance, but what I’m talking about is thermal properties. This thing runs insanely hot!

I purchased the retail box version of this processor, which means it came with an active cooling heatsink. Let’s talk about this heatsink. First, it’s a real pain to install. There are 4 “pins” that secure the heatsink onto the motherboard, and the resulting pressure is necessary to keep the processor adequately cooled (because the processor must have full contact with the heatsink plate to operate). That’s fine, but you have to remove your motherboard to do this. Of course, none of the documentation really mentioned this, so I spent awhile messing around before I realized the inevitable.

Securing the heatsink was the worst part. When you place a “pin” in the motherboard it clicks. All the pins are plastic, and you have to press hard to make them click (watch out, motherboard!). Once you have 3 pins in place, clicking the last pin into place would usually unseat two of the other pins. It reminded me of that whack-a-mole game you see at carnivals. I almost called another person to help me with this, but I finally got all 4 pins in place. Then I booted up the machine and the processor kept overheating within 4 seconds (BIOS said 102 degrees C). Guess they weren’t in place. Long story short, I had to remove the motherboard twice (and reinstall it) in order to make SURE that the heatsink was seated properly. Knowing what I do now, BUY A DIFFERENT HEATSINK. There’s a really cool 120mm fan heatsink out there that looks really good and is supposed to cool remarkably well, and keep the CPU at 55 C under full load.

This brings me to the processor itself. With the heatsink properly installed, I could finally start using my new processor. As mentioned in the previous review on this processor, the performance is generally quite good, but this comes at a heat price. When running simple Windows applications or Office products and the CPU load is low, everything is just great. Usual operating temperature on my system is about 43-48 degrees Celsius.

When you start putting the processor under load for more than a few seconds at a time, the heat begins to build. When I am playing a CPU-intense game, the processor usually runs about 70 degrees C. This is somewhere around the maximum upper limit for this processor. And I run my case OPEN.

I called Intel about this, as I thought perhaps I had received a slightly defective processor. A service rep told me that this is within tolerance, and “was I sure that I had the heatsink seated properly?” What he told me next, however, made me a little upset: He said that users of this processor are supposed to have a specially designed case (he didn’t say what, but mine is just ATX) that has basically a side air scoop to funnel cold air onto the heatsink. Now, short of those ‘gamer’ cases that have flashing neon lights and alien faces painted on the side, I don’t know of any cases that meet this description. Furthermore, NOTHING on the retail box, documentation, or web site mentioned anything about a special case being ‘highly recommended’. I just bought a new case, and was not about to buy another just for this processor.

As a result, I run my system with one of the front panels off (the 5.25” expansion bay panels), TWO 120mm case fans, one in front and one in back, and the maximum temperature I have reached is 71 C. (For those not in the know, 120mm fans are practically silent because they’re so big and don’t have to spin as quickly.) This is… barely acceptable. I don’t have air conditioning where I live, so when the room temperature reaches about 79 degrees Fahrenheit, I cannot run my CPU under full load without it overheating. I have never had a crash from overheating since I installed the heatsink properly, but I’m still afraid when I see the temperature on the CPU pushing 74 C. Typical ambient temperature in my living space is about 73 degrees Fahrenheit, so maybe you’d have more luck in a colder environment.

What’s funny is that I bought the 3.2ghz model over the 3.4ghz model because I read that the thermal requirements for the 3.4 are significantly higher. I suppose if I ran a 3.4 in my system my motherboard would turn into glowing embers in about 3 minutes.

In short, if you can overcome the cooling issues with this processor, it’s great. I love Intel, and have always owned their processors. I recommend getting this processor and checking out one of those other heatsinks. I think Tom’s Hardware Guide (google it) might have a big review right now on some P4 heatsinks. If this review seems critical, it is because all the positive aspects were described in the other review I keep referencing, and I see no need to duplicate that person’s review. This is meant to be a practical review emphasizing the day-to-day performance of this processor. Despite all my concerns, I still recommend the processor, but with a score of “Average”.