Globalwin VA476 Pentium 4 Heatsink Review
Globalwin
are one of the longest standing heatsink manufacturers in the industry, and with the close of
this years Computex 2002 we have been patiently waiting to see what they have to offer. The VA476 is one of Globalwin's newest socket 478 pentium 4 heatsinks. Designed around a thick copper base, and lightweight set of nickel-plated aluminum fins, the VA476 certainly looks as though it has good breading. However, as always this is a senario that can sometimes offer foggy first impressions.
The
weakest
point of any assembled heatsink lies with the thermal joint between the nickel-plated
aluminum and copper base plate. If the soldering or dip-brazing is not perfectly done,
small voids can form which will hamper the flow of heat up through to the
fins. From an initial inspection it looks as though the GlobalWin VA476 is
going to be in pretty good shape though. It's also kind of interesting to note that
the 0.5mm thick fins are spaced just 1mm apart - meaning fin density is pretty
plush.
The clip
which come
with the VA476 heatsink proved to be amazing complicated and difficult to engage on the
stock HSRM. This despite the fact that
they are essentially nothing more than flat, bent pieces of metal. In theory the clip should
be pretty simple to work with, but even in the wide open spaced of our test platform we had a hard time figuring out what to do with it, and with the amount of force necessary to lock the heatsink in place.
Globalwin do include instructions, and we made good use of
them which emphasizes the fact that while the clips are simple in design, the mechanism is not intuitive, and not immediately straight forward. There are a half dozen or so clipping systems in the market and Globalwin may do well to seriously consider adopting one for the VA476.
With the fan removed we can see one of those secrets to
good airflow - airflow between the base of the fan and the tips of the fins. The
small slot in the center of all those fins is probably for a clip
for a socket A variation of this heatsink to sit in. On the VA476
it serves no purpose whatsoever that we can see.
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