Socket MiniRoundup PART 2: Alpha PAL 6035 Review - PAGE 1

Introduction

If you've been in the overclocking arena for any amount of time, you've probably heard mention of the Alpha cooler. It has carved its place with beautiful design manufacturing, and low temperature scores and has no doubt become a standard to gauge other coolers by. The PAL 6035 is no different. This is the second installment in our multipart Socket cooler miniseries, and will take a close look into the design, temperature scores, and overall qualities of the PAL 6035 Alpha Cooler.

First Glance

The PAL 6035 cooler comes shipped un-assembled. Included is an illustrated installation flyer to walk you through assembly and installation, plus all of the parts needed to get it going. Once assembled, the cooler looks very impressive. The first thing I noticed was the weight of the assembled cooler. It was heavier than the other coolers I have tested thus far, and this is probably due in part to the copper inlay on the bottom face of the heatsink. Copper? Yes Copper! (See picture) Because copper is a better conductor of heat then aluminum, it is more suitable a material for heatsinks, from a performance standpoint. Copper is more costly than aluminum, however, and it would be too expensive to build the entire sink from copper, so instead Alpha molded a copper inlay right into the heatsink dye, so that the CPU would have direct physical contact with the more conductive copper metal, allowing the cooler to absorb the heat more quickly from the CPU and dissipate it into the rest of the aluminum sink. This feature alone could prove to be the cooler of choice for you Coppermine owners, since the Coppermine core is exposed to the elements!

Initial Impressions Cont'd

The design of the sink itself is close to that of the PFH 6035 (also from Alpha), though the hexagonal pins are a bit smaller, but this in turn allows for more pins spaced slightly closer together.

Moving up from the heatsink, there is another oddity on this cooler that sets it apart from the crowd: it has a folded metal shim that forms a box resting on top of the heatsink, with a space of about 1/8 inch between this shield and the heatsink. This allows the fan (which pulls air out) to form a better vacuum for airflow and heat dissipation.

The ZIF clamp looks simple, and doesn't include any real "finger grip" or anything to install, so get out the screwdriver or needle-nose.

My kit also included a finger / cable guard, which I appreciated. I'm glad some manufacturers recognize that these are not only nice additions, but are really important to the life of the fan, because you never know when a cable tie or other loose component in the case might accidentally drop into the cooler, obstructing it from normal (and safe) operation.

Specs

• Alpha Heatsink!
• Copper Embedded
• Model# PAL6035
• Y.S TECH Fan ball-bearing fan
• 26 CFM
• Dual-ball Bearing fan
• Includes fan finger guard (fan grill)
• Includes 1.g MPU 3.7 thermal compound

Assembly / Installation

Assembly was a breeze. The guided assembly flyer answered any questions I had regarding what goes where, and for the most part, it's simple.

Installing the cooler seemed to be more of a problem though, due to the small size of the clamp, and the bend in the clamp itself. Because of this bend, the clamp was exceptionally high, which let it clamp more securely to the CPU, but which also made it very hard to get snapped over the ZIF socket. The fan has a 3-pin motherboard power connection, and the kit also comes with a nice little syringe of thermal paste.

Once I fought with the clamp for about 5 minutes, I finally got the cooler installed, hooked up and ready to test! It fit very nicely on the CPU, and there was plenty of room around the cooler for air to move around, making this unit a nice selection for most motherboards. The cooler is very tall, however, so you may still want to check your board and case measurements for clearance before you rush out and get one.

Testing and Results

For testing I used the two test configurations and methodology as I did in the 3DCOOL Socket Freezer/Socket Sinker review. To summarize, the Alpha was tested on both a Socket 7 platform using an AMD K6-2 500 overclocked to 550Mhz, and on a Socket 370 platform using an FC-PGA Coppermine Celeron 566 overclocked from default all the way to 800Mhz.

Discussion

Looking at the scores from the first tests, you are able to see that the Alpha cooler really swept the generic cooler away! I think the biggest strength that the Alpha cooler is the copper inlay located at the bottom of the heatsink. With it, heat can be absorbed faster, and transferred to the heat fins faster, and finally sucked away by the upward blowing fan. You can also see that when the Socket 7 CPU was overclocked, the Alpha cooler really did a nice job of keeping the CPU cool, only raising the CPU temperature less than 1 degree Celsius. My assumption would be that this cooler could have handled much more heat put on by the Socket 7 CPU, but the lack of multiplying ability on the motherboard didn't allow me to go any higher.

In the second tests, look at the amazing results this cooler yielded when put on top of a FC-PGA CPU! I was amazed that the CPU didn't even get over 7 degrees Celsius warmer than normal, when bumped all the way to 800MHZ! At the test increments, the Alpha cooler actually only went up, only an average of 1-2 degrees Celsius, until finally jumping 5 degrees more when running at 800MHZ. This is where I think, once again the copper inlay at the bottom of the heatsink really helped! Since FC-PGA CPUs don't actually have a lot of surface contact with the heatsink, any contact it does make better count for the best heat consumption it can! For this reason, the Alpha cooler was able to sustain high temperature efficiently, and therefore would be a very nice choice for overclocking that Cu-mine processor, if you have the room!

You'll notice from the pictures, I had to move the mounting bracket over 1 notch in the fins, to make this cooler fit correctly for testing. Due to the large footprint this cooler makes, it was actually hitting the ZIF arm aboard the Iwill Slocket II, but this slight adjustment didn't cost me much time, and it was well worth it!

Conclusion

As mentioned before, the height of this cooler was enormous! It's by far the tallest cooler in the roundup, and you can see from the pictures, when installed onto the motherboard via the Slocket II, it barely gave room enough for just 1 SDRAM module. Even though this cooler has so far proved to be the extreme Cu-mine overclocked cooling solution, you'll want to make sure your system board can handle the room for such a cooler.

The Alpha cooler is a great choice for someone looking to do extreme overclocking with the cost of giving up some space in your computer. Whether it's the Socket 7, PPGA, FC-PGA, or Socket 370, I'm sure you'll be pleased with the performance from the Alpha cooler.

[Alpha also has two newer coolers available targetted specifically for the FC-PGA market. These two coolers are also supplied by coolerguys, and we are looking to review them as well in a future set of articles - Editor]

Final Score: 90%

The Alpha PAL6035 Socket Cooler can be purchased from coolerguys.com for $29.50US plus shipping - this price includes the complete kit with fanguard and thermal compound.