Tom's Hardware > All Reviews > Components > Cooling > Three Red-Hot Boxed Cooler Alternatives for the Athlon XP3200+

Three Red-Hot Boxed Cooler Alternatives for the Athlon XP3200+

07:00 - Wednesday 17 September 2003 by Harald Thon

1. Coolers For The Athlon XP: Those Declared Dead Live Longer
2. Coolers For The Athlon XP: Those Declared Dead Live Longer, Continued
3. The Measurement Platform: Temperature Measurement Directly On The Die
4. The Measurement Platform: Temperature Measurement Directly On The Die, C...
5. AMD Boxed 3200+ Cooler
6. Coolers For PC Pilots: Coolermaster Jet 7
7. Coolers For PC Pilots: Coolermaster Jet 7, Continued

The days of the Athlon platform and Socket A are without a doubt numbered. AMD will unveil the Athlon XP's successor, for example, September 23. But a complete switch to the new 64 bit Athlon processor won't happen overnight, so there remain market opportunities for Athlon XP coolers.

CPU cooling solution suppliers obviously agree. What else could explain the fact that many a manufacturer is presenting "new" cooling solutions for the "old" platform only days/weeks before the launch of the new platform? Totally unprecedented in the practice of presenting a cooler is the way Coolermaster has attached an NDA to any reporting on its latest model, the Jet 7. In other words: only after the embargo ends (as of September 17) can the Jet 7 be reported on.

Reason enough, then, to test a few of the latest cooling models and compare them to the boxed cooler of the latest Athlon XP (3200+/ 200MHz FSB).

Before we deal more closely with the test candidates, we should take a look at the maximum thermal power of the top models of the various Athlon XP variations with Thoroughbred A, B and Barton cores (Source: AMD Processor Model 8 and Model 10 data sheets):

Model	Core-Frequency	FSB	L2-Cache	Core	Max Thermal Power	DIE-Size	Max specific Thermal Power	Max DIE-Temperature
2200+	1800 MHz	266 MHz	256 kB	TB-A	67.9 W	0.80cm²	84.88W/cm²	85 °C
2600+	2133 MHz	266 MHz	256 kB	TB-B	68.3 W	0.84cm²	81.31W/cm²	85 °C
2700+	2167 MHz	333 MHz	256 kB	TB-B	68.3 W	0.84cm²	81.31W/cm²	85 °C
3000+	2167 MHz	333 MHz	512 kB	Barton	74.3 W	1.01cm²	73.56W/cm²	85 °C
3200+	2200 MHz	400 MHz	512 kB	Barton	76,8 W	1,01 cm²	76 W/cm³	85°C
2400+	2000 MHz	266 MHz	256 kB	TB-B	68.3 W	0.84cm²	81.31W/cm²	85 °C