Rated for up to 2.8GHz Intel Pentium 4 processors, the Verax P16 has a few quirks which are unique to this kind of heatsink. The most obvious are the little metal clips used to hold the heatsink in the P4 heatsink retention mechanism, but the most important as far as we are concerned is the thermistor controlled CAIRdB 80251231-KT2 80mm fan.

In a case environment, the fan relies upon the ambient temperatures to control how fast, or slow it rotates. At temperatures of around 20 degree Celsius, the 80mm fan rotates at abut 1700RPM. It is not until an ambient case temperature of at least 43 degrees Celsius is reached that the CAIRdB will reach full rotation of ~3100RPM.

Since we test heatsinks in an ambient room environment a little adjustment is necessary to get the fan performing in a useful manner. Using a pair of tweezers, we nudged the thermistor from its spot in one of the fans braces and bent it over so that it projected out from the base. In this orientation when the fan is mounted back on the heatsink the thermistor should be in direct contact with the metal fins of the heatsink, and thus fan RPM will be determined by the metals' temperature.

Getting back to the other part which stands out on the Verax P16, we found a clip like one we've never come across before. This small piece of metal (one on each corner) rotates around 360 degrees, and as you can see in the picture just above to the right, locks in under the plastic tab of a standard Pentium 4 heatsink retention mechanism. To be on the safe side, I would strongly recommend removing the Verax P16 if you plan on transporting the computer any distance. The clipping mechanism locks down heatsink firmly, but it doesn't really have a solid latching feel to it - so repeated vibration could work the connector loose in a shipping environment.

Anyway, we've seen just a glimpse of the Verax P16, let's take a look at the rest of the heatsink now and see how well it performs thermally and acoustically!