Is Golden Orb better than retail fan/heatsink?

[Travis]

I recently purchased a Gorb and a retail p3 733. I have the 733 overclocked to 957. I was suprised to observe the retail fan/heatsink kept my cpu cooler by about 5 degrees under full load (95f vs 90f). Has anyone else noticed this with there rigs? I am sure the Gorb is mounted correctly and I
used heatsink compound. This is very disappointing because in most cases retail heatsinks are not very good. This really makes the Gorb look bad. I also have a Celeron 366 overclocked to 550 with a older GlobalWin fan/heatsink combo that is noticably better than its retail counterpart. Is the Gorb all flash?

P3 System
Asus CUSL2
p3 733
Micron pc100 128m
Tnt2Ultra
SB Live!
Cnet 100mbs netcard

 

[RKM]

No, the GORB is not all "flash". I mounted a GORB on my K6-2 400 oc'd to 450mhz. and it dropped the temp 14 degrees celcius lower than the (pathetic) stock heatsink and fan could manage. My K6-2 400 now runs on average about 26 degrees celcius and under heavy usage only gets up to 34 degrees.
I do have my case very well ventilated with a fan pulling air in at the bottom front, a fan blowing out at the top back, and I custom cut hole for mounting a fan on the side panel to blow on my cards (graphics card specifically). This is all in a Kerry mid-tower "fat-boy" case and these mods were done before I switched to the GORB (with heatsink compound used, of course).

 

[tonyou]

The Golden Orb should be better, did you remove the thermal pad that came with the Orb?

Tony

 

[Killrose]

What is the fan speed on the orb? mine is 4500rpm min. Retail heatsinks suck, unless you use thermal compound with them, then the'll get you by on an easy overclocking chip.

 

[Fingers]

applying too much heatsink compound will make it less affective. you should only apply a small amount as any more can act as an insulator.

 

[Travis]

Yes I did use Heatsink compound and yes I did use the correct amount. I always remove the insulator on all heatsinks including the retail. I also applied heatsink compound to the retail heatsink before replacing it with the Gorb, maybe that is why it performed so well.

 

[Marine]

Travis, I've got two quite overclocked machines running on late stock Intel fans and heat sinks with outstanding results. I think lots of guy are convinced that more chrome and fins make their 302 run better too....

 

[Travis]

Atleast there is one person who doesnt think I'm crazy

 

[Syborg1211]

go here and your questions will be answered, unless you dont trust anandtech



http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1279&p=1

 

[Travis]

Thanks Syborg very informative.

 

[Mikewarrior2]

The gorbs are decent, but they are nowhere near great heatsinks.

My personal pick for a low-cost p3 heatsink is a socketA taisol heatsink(you have to modify the clip ) but you can pick them up for around $11 a piece, and they perform wtihin a degree or 2 of my pal6035 ALPHA(with a 27.2 CFM Fan). My cpu is a 650E @975 1.75 volts on a CUSL2.



Mike

 

[Eug]

The retail heatsinks aren't that great, but I'm convinced that most of the benefit of getting a 3rd party heatsink is $1 thermal compound rather than the heatsink itself. The problem is that crapola retail thermal pad.

If I were to get a new chip, I'd go OEM and separate heatsink. However, if I already had the retail setup, I'd be tempted just to remove the pad and replace it with good thermal compound.

The Orb is good, but it sure ain't top of the line, even just by looking at the design of the thing.

 

[Linh]

more tests
more

 

[Astrocar]

Others Have found that the Heatsink compound on the Golden Orb is superior to most other types. (You should have used the original GORB heatsink compound). Is yours a Slot-1, Slotket or flat FC-PGA? I have a P3 600 Slot-1 and found the Golden Orb keeps mine about 7f - 8f cooler than the stock fan. This is in line with most tests I have seen. There are fans which cool better thsn the GORB but they are much more noisy, ugly, and bulky enough that in a Slot-1 or Slotket setup may block DIMM slots.

 

[Travis]

Astrocar mine is a flipchip (fcpga).

 

[thermite88]

Travis,



<< I was suprised to observe the retail fan/heatsink kept my cpu cooler by about 5 degrees under full load (95f vs 90f) >>



I am too. Typically, the P3 runs about 30-40F above case temperature at full load. If the retail fan/heatsink kept the cpu at 90F, the room would be at the 50F or so.

The Gorb is a very well designed heat sink and losing out to Alpha FCPAL-35t by only 2-4 degrees. The success is due to the good heat sink and mounting mechanism design. Thermaltake also uses the best thermal compound available. (I second what Astrocar said.)

I also found that the Gorb twisting clip to be better than the Alpha clip. The Gorb mounts perfectly flat on the CPU on every MB and slotket that I tried. On the other hand, the Alpha clip mounts slightly uneven on some slotket if the tabs on the CPU socket is not at the correct location. On those slotket, the Alpha actually performs slightly worse than the Gorb.

Tyical performance of P3-700 oc to 980MHz at 1.65 Vcore: (Deg above case temperature)
Golden Orb: 20F idle, 38F full load
FCPAL-35t: 18F idle, 34F full load

 

[Santa]

I recently went with Golden Orb also for my Athlon setup.. tearing into the case was not fun but had to be done to get the Golden Orb and the GoldFinger installed. I was very disappointed also in the Slot 1 version of the Golden Orb though. From what im hearing now after installing and after personal experience that the Golden Orb Slot 1 is not worth the trouble. The orginal Heatsink and Fan with larger fins was alot more effective.

I think the Socket type orbs are probably better.