Computer information pertaining to the install
Athlon FX-53
Gigabyte's K8NSNXP=939
Ram - 2 sticks of 3200
Not going to get into too much detail but the above should tell the important stuff regarding fitting the heat sink for my system.
To start - Gigabyte's stock retainer mount for their stock heat sink does not have a back plate that accepts screws. It will not stay tight on them. I had to remove the stock retainer mount, back plate - and, not having a spare back plate - I hate to do a bit of a modification - at least, something I wasn't expecting to do.
Pop has a bunch of nuts and washers and screws and all that. I managed to find a couple of thick plastic washers (Not big, just thick), and the proper size nuts.
So I put the new retainer mount in and thread the screws through the other side. Placed a washer on each screw before bringing the nut up to help keep things tight and keep the nuts from contacting the motherboard.
I made sure the retainer mount was snug and tight and firmly in place before proceeding any further. I placed a 120 Panaflo fan onto the head sink - which uses these weird clip-on mounts to hold the large fan into place. It was a bit confusing - and I recommend that anyone who isn't familiar with clip-on mounting - to read reviews and/or look at pictures of this heat sink with fans 'clipped into place against the heat sink.
Once the fan was firmly on the heat sink - (Complete with vibration dampening little silicon sticky bars that you place on the heat sink before putting the fan on it - which I did. Good for preventing vibration/rattle from the fan and heat sink), I proceeded to get a very light/thin sheen of Arctic Silver on the heat spreader. Once this was done, the heat sink was 'clipped' into place via the heat sink's 4 'arms' at the base that you have to sort of push down(be careful here!) and in to get the little triangle-shaped hooks to lock into place against the custom mount that comes with it. It's a very snug fit once you have all four 'arms' in place - though you have to make sure they snap in good - they can be 'in' the hole but not snapped all the way in - make sure when you're at this part tht they are as snugly in as can be.
Reviews say the latter part is a pain - but it's not too hard at all provided you have patience and think carefully and do things with the knowledge that you have very delicate parts all around you.
Once the heat sink was on - the fan power plug was connected to the motherboard - and the motherboard was screwed back into the case. Alas - my case does not have a removable tray - and removing the motherboard and putting it back in was a bit of a pain - though nothing horribly cruel.
With the motherboard in place and all the cards and cords plugged back in - I attempted to put the ram bars back into their positions (Dimm 1 and 3). And ack! At first I couldn't get stick 1 into Dimm1 - the metal bars that come up from the heat sink were blocking the ram! Eep - after a good 5 minutes of worrying that all this work was for nothing, meaning a sacrifice of the heat sink or at least a stick of ram (A whole gig's worth) - I decided to try something unique. The bars of the heat sink come up at an *angle* - this means near the top of the heat sink - the pipes are furthest out towards the Dimm slot. But I noticed that near the base - near the dimm slot - that they were further in. A-ha. So I put the ram stick iin at an angle, being carefuly while I push it down into the slot and VIOLA! it's in and the metal pipes aren't even pressing up against the ram bar! Thank goodness for that - because I'm pretty sure that wouldn't have worked out too well. So with a bit of smarts I wsa able to get the ram in - though I can see how some people might freak out at this step and end up just returning the item and being very upset. =(
So I started it up and gack! Lots of nasty vibrating noise - Like fan blades were hitting something. The culprit turned out to be those little silicon bars that run across the heat sink. The fan blades were actually hitting against parts of it. So - with a bit of quick work from my xacto knife - I was able to remove some of the silicon bar where the fan blade was hitting into it and making noise (And lots of vibration, no doubt). This allowed for the vibration bars to remain in place, albeit little slots where the fan is that don't have the silicone - but this is ok! The entire fan is still mounted on the little silicone bars where it counts and is important.
The heat sink's performance is amazing. That's all I can say.
Yes, it was way more work then I thought it would be, but I used to get about 40-42 idle with my stock heat sink. I now get about 30-32 C idle with the XP-120 and Panaflo 120 size fan.
Under Seti work load and other various chat programs that I run - the temperature topped off at 44 C - though that was only for a brief moment - and it stays pretty consistantly at 43 C.
My old temperature under the same work load would top off around 63 or 64 C or so, and remain pretty steady at around 59-60 Celsius.
That's a pretty amazing difference. I could easily overclock this a bit and not worry about temperatures - wihch means this heat sink is a very overclocker friendly heat sink. Just make sure you get a good fan to go with it. The exact fan I'm using is a Panaflo 120mm 'High Output' 103 CFM fan. I can certainly hear it inside the case - but it's no big deal considering the many case fans that I usually hear. It's recommended that users of this heat sink get a fan controller device if they're bothered by noise - though I find the noise made by the fan to be very easily coped with - especially considering how well it performs.
I'm giving this heat sink a 9 / 10 - the instructions are not very detailed and leave out a few steps in my opinion - and I had to do some silly little things here 'n there. Make sure you check that this heat sink is compatible with your motherboard before even thinking about it. Don't gamble it if you can't find out. Call or email the manufacturer and ask directly. I remember seeing on their web page that my board was compatible - but even still - I had to do some slightly silly stuff to get everything working perfectly. Well worth the effort though. I'm just amazed and a little bit shocked at the difference it makes.
-Jen
Athlon FX-53
Gigabyte's K8NSNXP=939
Ram - 2 sticks of 3200
Not going to get into too much detail but the above should tell the important stuff regarding fitting the heat sink for my system.
To start - Gigabyte's stock retainer mount for their stock heat sink does not have a back plate that accepts screws. It will not stay tight on them. I had to remove the stock retainer mount, back plate - and, not having a spare back plate - I hate to do a bit of a modification - at least, something I wasn't expecting to do.
Pop has a bunch of nuts and washers and screws and all that. I managed to find a couple of thick plastic washers (Not big, just thick), and the proper size nuts.
So I put the new retainer mount in and thread the screws through the other side. Placed a washer on each screw before bringing the nut up to help keep things tight and keep the nuts from contacting the motherboard.
I made sure the retainer mount was snug and tight and firmly in place before proceeding any further. I placed a 120 Panaflo fan onto the head sink - which uses these weird clip-on mounts to hold the large fan into place. It was a bit confusing - and I recommend that anyone who isn't familiar with clip-on mounting - to read reviews and/or look at pictures of this heat sink with fans 'clipped into place against the heat sink.
Once the fan was firmly on the heat sink - (Complete with vibration dampening little silicon sticky bars that you place on the heat sink before putting the fan on it - which I did. Good for preventing vibration/rattle from the fan and heat sink), I proceeded to get a very light/thin sheen of Arctic Silver on the heat spreader. Once this was done, the heat sink was 'clipped' into place via the heat sink's 4 'arms' at the base that you have to sort of push down(be careful here!) and in to get the little triangle-shaped hooks to lock into place against the custom mount that comes with it. It's a very snug fit once you have all four 'arms' in place - though you have to make sure they snap in good - they can be 'in' the hole but not snapped all the way in - make sure when you're at this part tht they are as snugly in as can be.
Reviews say the latter part is a pain - but it's not too hard at all provided you have patience and think carefully and do things with the knowledge that you have very delicate parts all around you.
Once the heat sink was on - the fan power plug was connected to the motherboard - and the motherboard was screwed back into the case. Alas - my case does not have a removable tray - and removing the motherboard and putting it back in was a bit of a pain - though nothing horribly cruel.
With the motherboard in place and all the cards and cords plugged back in - I attempted to put the ram bars back into their positions (Dimm 1 and 3). And ack! At first I couldn't get stick 1 into Dimm1 - the metal bars that come up from the heat sink were blocking the ram! Eep - after a good 5 minutes of worrying that all this work was for nothing, meaning a sacrifice of the heat sink or at least a stick of ram (A whole gig's worth) - I decided to try something unique. The bars of the heat sink come up at an *angle* - this means near the top of the heat sink - the pipes are furthest out towards the Dimm slot. But I noticed that near the base - near the dimm slot - that they were further in. A-ha. So I put the ram stick iin at an angle, being carefuly while I push it down into the slot and VIOLA! it's in and the metal pipes aren't even pressing up against the ram bar! Thank goodness for that - because I'm pretty sure that wouldn't have worked out too well. So with a bit of smarts I wsa able to get the ram in - though I can see how some people might freak out at this step and end up just returning the item and being very upset. =(
So I started it up and gack! Lots of nasty vibrating noise - Like fan blades were hitting something. The culprit turned out to be those little silicon bars that run across the heat sink. The fan blades were actually hitting against parts of it. So - with a bit of quick work from my xacto knife - I was able to remove some of the silicon bar where the fan blade was hitting into it and making noise (And lots of vibration, no doubt). This allowed for the vibration bars to remain in place, albeit little slots where the fan is that don't have the silicone - but this is ok! The entire fan is still mounted on the little silicone bars where it counts and is important.
The heat sink's performance is amazing. That's all I can say.
Yes, it was way more work then I thought it would be, but I used to get about 40-42 idle with my stock heat sink. I now get about 30-32 C idle with the XP-120 and Panaflo 120 size fan.
Under Seti work load and other various chat programs that I run - the temperature topped off at 44 C - though that was only for a brief moment - and it stays pretty consistantly at 43 C.
My old temperature under the same work load would top off around 63 or 64 C or so, and remain pretty steady at around 59-60 Celsius.
That's a pretty amazing difference. I could easily overclock this a bit and not worry about temperatures - wihch means this heat sink is a very overclocker friendly heat sink. Just make sure you get a good fan to go with it. The exact fan I'm using is a Panaflo 120mm 'High Output' 103 CFM fan. I can certainly hear it inside the case - but it's no big deal considering the many case fans that I usually hear. It's recommended that users of this heat sink get a fan controller device if they're bothered by noise - though I find the noise made by the fan to be very easily coped with - especially considering how well it performs.
I'm giving this heat sink a 9 / 10 - the instructions are not very detailed and leave out a few steps in my opinion - and I had to do some silly little things here 'n there. Make sure you check that this heat sink is compatible with your motherboard before even thinking about it. Don't gamble it if you can't find out. Call or email the manufacturer and ask directly. I remember seeing on their web page that my board was compatible - but even still - I had to do some slightly silly stuff to get everything working perfectly. Well worth the effort though. I'm just amazed and a little bit shocked at the difference it makes.
-Jen