Thermalright ALX-800 Heatsink

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For Providing Us With This FINE Product to Review

As time goes by, it's becoming more and more important to computer users to have lower processor temperatures. As we all know, lower temperatures yeild a longer life for processors as well as increase their overclocking threshold. For the most dedicated and hardcore user, the solution is water cooling or a more extreme alternative such as phase change. There are still those though who are either not brave enough or do not have the money to go the extreme. For those people, the simplest solution comes down to a heatsink and a nice fan. In this review, I am going to show you a recently released heatsink produced by Thermalright which is hopn ouo provide lower processor temperatures than its competitors with its innovative design techniques. Without any further wait, I bring you the Thermalright ALX-800.

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The package arrived at my doorstep in a prompt three days after requesting it. The item was shipped via FedEx and did not appear to have any damage. The box with the actual heatsink in it is a small sturdy brown box with dimensions of about 15.5x15x7 centimeters. On the top of the box is the Thermalright name and on the side of the box is listed the item number. Inside the box is an apparatus made of cardboard which holds the heatsink itself which is wrapped in plastic, the generic thermal paste which is supplied in a syringe, the clips for holding the fan on the heatsink and a small plastic bag which holds some felt pads.

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Specifications

The heatsink itself feels very solid and heavy. The base is made out of copper and is formed into the shape of a trapezoid. This shape is one feature that Thermalright claims is what contributes to the ALX-800?s cooling abilities. The fins of the heatsink are made of aluminum to make the heatsink lighter and are said to be super thin at one millimeter to provide more surface area. There are exactly thirty two of these fins. Upon inspection of the heatsink, I noticed that one of the fins was actually bent to the side as shown in the above picture. Also included is the black locking clip used to hold the heatsink to the CPU socket.

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Looking more closely at the copper base, it appears very smooth to the naked eye considering it's a factory finish. When I ran my fingernail across the bottom, I could feel the slightest ridges but nothing to worry about. As you can see in the picture, the reflection of the pencil is only a little distorted which indicates a fairly smooth surface. The parts that aren't smooth will be compensated for by the thermal paste provided.

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Installation of the heatsink is as simple as any other average heatsink installation. The first step was to remove the old heatsink which I would hope was the most obvious step. Then one would need to clean off the processor core. Next, you would need to peel the protective sticker off of the bottom of the new heatsink. What someone would do next is nothing I have experienced yet in heatsinks in that I have never used this type of design. The copper base of the heatsink is to narrow to span the gap between the pads on the processor. In order to get around this small detail and not put all of the weight on the processor core, the four felt pads I spoke of earlier are placed on the bottom of the base where their spots are marked by indentations in the copper. From that step on, installation is fairly straight forward. Installation of the fan is comprised of just placing the fan on the heatsink and installing the clips.

For testing, I will be comparing the ALX-800 with a Cooler Master Aero 7+ and the stock AMD processor that comes with the heatsink. The ALX-800 used a Panaflo 80 millimeter High Output fan, the Aero 7+ used the stock fan and the stock AMD heatsink also used the stock fan. The system that I will be testing these heatsinks on is comprised of the following:

AMD Athlon 2000+ XP

ASUS A7V333

512MB Kingston PC2100 DDRRAM

Antec True Power 420watt PSU

2x Western Digital 60GB 7200RPM 8MB Cache

Plextor 40x24x40x CD Burner

The test was allowing the system to sit at idle for a minimum of thirty minutes and then recording the temperatures and then running SiSoftware Sandra?s CPU Burn In for a minimum of thirty minutes on each heatsink and individual fan setting and then the temperature was recorded.



In conclusion, the ALX-800 is the best heatsink I have ever used. It provided me with the lowest temperatures of all of the heatsinks I tested. After testing the ALX-800, I would recommend it to anyone who uses air cooling and wants considerably low temperatures. The heatsink is good in the fact that it provides normal users with good, stable temperatures that will in turn increase the life of your processor as well as provide the more extreme users with a considerably large overclocking horizon. Be sure to get your hands on one quick because they will be going fast.