The Thermalright SLK-948U is an oldie but a goodie. This 635 gram chunk of copper is still a relevant heatsink however, resembling something akin to a metallic Toblerone with copper fins. It's this design which keeps the SLK-948U alive and kicking, and as you'll see in a moment more than capable for any K8 processor. The heatsink ships in a very plain cardboard box with a small collection of wire fan clips, spring tensioned screws, more screws, mounting plates and more clips. No instructions are provided, which is rather disappointing.

As is usual with Thermalright, no fan is included with the cooler. Instead, you are pushed to use a fan as fast, or as slow, as your noise requirements dictate. Judging by the way Thermalright heatsinks tend to get snatched up by performance cooling freaks, a good solid 25x92mm fan is the right choice for this heatsink. For low noise operation we selected Zalman's ZM-F2 fan. It spins at about 2800RPM and creates about 46 dB of noise.

Thermalright SLK-948U Heatsink
	heatsink specsheet manufacturer: thermalright model no.: slk-948u materials: copper fins and base. fan mfg: n/a fan spec: n/a fan dim: accepts 38/25x92x92mm fans heatsink dim: 44x96x89mm weight: 635 grams includes: multisocket mounting hardware brackets and support plates, thermal compound, wire fan clips. Compatible with Sockets: 478 and 754/939/940 Est. Pricing: $20USD ($22CDN / £10GBP)

The Thermalright SLK-948U is compatible with socket 754/939/940 AMD Athlon64 processors (not AM2), and socket 478 Intel Pentium 4/D CPUs (not socket 775). Shown below are some of the wire clips for different sized fans, screws and other items the Thermalright SLK-948U ships with.

If the Thermalright SLK-948U is going to be used with the socket 754/939/940 platform two small metal rests need to be attached with screws to either side of the heatsink's metal mounting clip. The metal rests extend the mounting base of the heatsink out, and from this the two spring-tensioned screws mount directly to the K8 rear motherboard support plate.

FrostyTech's new Test Methodology is outlined in detail here if you care to know what equipment is used, and the parameters under which the tests are conducted. Now let's move forward and take a closer look at the Thermalright SLK-948U heatsink, its acoustic characteristics, and of course it performance in the thermal tests!