The Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro Heatsink/Fan

[Capper]

TY, you've been a great asset to our community....keep up the great work with the guides.

[Tyreal]

Will do man. I still don't see my thermal paste guide up :D

[Capper]

been kinda busy with other things....it'll make it up there, don't worry

[Tyreal]

ahaha. i know.

[garetjax]

Allow me to preface this by saying that I am new to the boards, and that I am glad to be here. I just wanted to take a moment to both comment and pose a question concerning this thread. =)

I thought the review by Paul was excellent. Very thorough and was not "dumbed" down so as to make me feel like an idiot while reading it. The conclusion was especially well done, making its case for each class of computer users. However, I do have one consideration I would like to address.

Like many people, I found the benchmarks of the cooler to be unremarkable when compared to the stock AMD HSF. Could the lackluster results be partly due to the lack of 'break-in' for the copper heatsink and the slug on the CPU to bond together with the AS5/MX-1 in between them? I have read in the past that it takes a few hundred hours of operation to really get thermal grease to settle, and reach its optimum interface conditions. Granted, I know that waiting a few hundred hours for thermal paste to settle isn't really practical when writing a review on a HSF, but nonetheless, would the Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro had better benchmarks if it did have a few hundred hours of settling time under its belt?

[One4yu2c]

Hey Garet, good to see you make the trip to HL - welcome! :)

As to your question regarding the AS5, I actually did let it cure before recording temperatures and writing the review. It wasn't quite 200 hours, but it was pretty close. Since then, it's been well over 200 hours at this point and I'm getting the same results. The stock cooler on AMD's X2 processors (excluding the 3800+ X2) apparently are just really good performers.

[sbohdan]

welcome to the forum garetjax :P

[Capper]

I actually use Luminere for all my reviews. Its made by AS, but has zero cure time (specifically made for testing). as to using AS5, I have generally seen little change between 10 hours and 200 hrs as far as temps go. I'll stress a system really good for a day, then turn it off for a few hours, then repeat.

[garetjax]

Originally Posted by One4yu2c

Hey Garet, good to see you make the trip to HL - welcome! :)

As to your question regarding the AS5, I actually did let it cure before recording temperatures and writing the review. It wasn't quite 200 hours, but it was pretty close. Since then, it's been well over 200 hours at this point and I'm getting the same results. The stock cooler on AMD's X2 processors (excluding the 3800+ X2) apparently are just really good performers.

Ah, good show. I am actually quite pleased to hear this news about how well the stock HSF are holding up, at least for the X2 crowd, save for the 3800+. There was once a time when stock heatsinks and fans did not enjoy such high praises... when replacing them was usually the first thing you did to 'mod' a computer. =)

[Captain Crunch]

Originally Posted by garetjax

I know that waiting a few hundred hours for thermal paste to settle isn't really practical when writing a review on a HSF, but nonetheless, would the Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro had better benchmarks if it did have a few hundred hours of settling time under its belt?

To answer that question in my opinion NO not really.
A.S. recommends 200 hours for optimal temps.
I have over that on my X2 3800+ now. I really didn't see much difference.
I'm in agreeance with Paul I didn't really see a significant change in temps. At least not enough to justify the price. (now don't get me wrong the freezer 64 pro is priced very very well, but possibly not enough to justify the money spent.
Now from what Iv heard the singe core fair much better the the pro64.
Like Paul said the new dual cores come with some nice heat sinks and unless your going to do so serious overclocking the stock heat sink will do you just fine in my opinion.