Let's face it, if you have a Celeron, you probably bought it because of it's incredibly low price and it's great potential for overclocking.  We all marveled at the Celeron 300A running at 450 back in the days when a 400MHz Pentium II cost an arm and a leg.  In fact, my Celeron 300A is pumping 495MHz to this day.  Overclocking has become an art, we've seen a variety of cooling technologies from standard heatsinks, to Peltier elements, to water cooling; each of these having their own niche.  Most people, however, just want something that inexpensive and gets the job done well.  The only devices that fit this category are standard heatsinks.  In this review, we're going to be taking a look at some of the more popular (and highly touted) ones and see just how well they work.

With the advent of the Socket-370 and better manufacturing processes, the new Celeron's have a bit more potential than the older Slot-1 models did.  However, we can no longer use those massively long heatsinks that worked great on the Slot-1 CPU's.  Since there was so much surface area and usually dual or even triple fans, they worked great at keeping the heat off.  Now, we have a much smaller area to work with and only one fan.  Heatsink manufacturers had to find a way to pack the same amount of cooling power into a much smaller package.

In this review we'll be taking a look at a few of some of the most popular Socket-7/370 coolers, namely a couple of the big boys from Alpha and Global WIN.  We've thrown in a Peltier cooler from Vantec and a generic Vantec coolers for comparison's sake. 

Before we begin, we'd like to extend a big thank you to the CoolerGuys for providing all of these heatsinks and fans. Without further ado , here are the contenders:

ALPHA PFH6035MFC:

This was ALPHA's first entry into the Socket-370 market.  It's quite tall with the fan mounted on it.  On the Soyo SY-6BA+IV, it blocks two out of four DIMM slots.  This is a plain aluminum heatsink (no copper insert) that has a rather unique style of fins.  Rather than use flat fins, ALPHA chose to make them hexagonal and dense.  This increases surface area for more heat dissipation.  One interesting point is that on the instructions that come with this kit, it says to place the fan blowing away from the heatsink.  Most other coolers have the air blowing into the heatsink.  It's debatable which way works better but having it point away from the fan certainly cuts down on noise, since there is no air blowing through the fins and resonating. One last thing to note is that ALPHA coolers look very cool and professionally built.  When you look at the craftsmanship of an ALPHA cooler, you'll be impressed.

ALPHA PAL6035MFC:

This baby is brand new on ALPHA's roster and includes the same copper insert that you've probably seen on the Pentium III P3125 heatsink.  The quality is amazing, the surface of this heatsink is unbelievably smooth and you can't detect any malformations whatsoever. Other than the copper insert, the only difference between this and the above cooler is the black color.  Again, the instructions suggest placing the fan so that it blows air away from the heatsink.

Next Page: Global WIN & Vantec

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