The type of cooler isn't really going to be of any interest to anyone, there will always be after-market coolers. But how much does something like that cost to make compared to the current design? Or the older simple designs? It's got to make up a rather large percentage of the price of a retail box processor. Just the number of screws holding it together probably means more steps in the production line.
What's with the thermal pad on there? It's not even the same size as the heat spreader. If it doesn't "flow" out far enough, you'll end up with the edges of the heatspreader not making any contact with the heatsink at all (ignoring the issue of a circular copper patch on a square heat spreader).
I'd have expected the BTX stock cooler to be simple and smaller than ATX coolers. Outside exhausting is part of the design, it should be more efficient and therefore more able to deal with even a Prescott. All they needed to do was stick a shroud on it, except for the different mounting style.
I hope BTX gets changed the way ATX did, so we're not stuck mounting our coolers to the mainboard tray.
Why not switch to the old Alpha design? A big bold right down the middle of the CPU. 🙂
