Via C3 passive heatsink located

[Danlz]

I finally found a decent heatsink for the blaz'n cold C3's. They are a black
body radiator cube, approx 1.97x1.97x1.75 inches tall, $1.25 each. It's keeping my C3-800 within 2 deg. C ambient (using the mobo's thermistors) while surf'n etc., and 20 deg .C over ambient with flat-out Quake 3 Arena. I say to h%## with the bogus HS mfrs listed on Via's site which don't support the C3 in the USA.
All Electronics

 

[Hani]

2C above ambient when idle, and 20C above ambient when full load?! That's very strange... Is that the case with most passive heatsinks?

 

[Danlz]

Umm..not so strange considering that the C3 consumes 11 watts max, and typically runs at just 6 watts. A passive HS on CPU's that are now consuming over 60 watts would require a HS the size of a shoe box, or larger (or be able to operate at white-hot temps)!!! For comparative purposes, my temps were within 1deg. C at idle and 10 deg. C over ambient (or more correctly, system temp as measured by a SM device on the mobo) with Q3Arena using an old HSF from the junk drawer that had last seen service on a P55-233 socket 7.