In the world of CPU cooling, there are many hyped up products that do very little for the end user. This is where Alpha enters into the fray, for "non-exotic" cooling (peltier / liquid.) Alpha heatsinks are considered to be the best by many avid overclockers.

So let's find out how good this cooler really is. After all just because it's a 'brand name' does not guarantee everything. Also, at $36 CDN / $24 USD you would hopefully expect more than what a cheap $10 heatsink can do. Opening up the box we see the following bits and pieces: 1 PFH6035 Heat sink, 1 packet of Alpha heatsink paste, 1 clip, 4 washers, 4 screws, 1 intake cover (shroud,) 1 installation guide, and 1 YS. Tech 27.2 CFM 60 MM fan.

Appearance

The Alpha PFH6035 is a micro-forged all aluminum heat sink. As with all Alphas, the distinguishing feature of their heat sinks are the  properly finished (nice and flat to a tolerance of around 0.0005"- 0.0001" in most cases) base contact area. The cooling surface on this heat sink (as well as all available CPU coolers from Alpha) are blessed with almost perfect flatness, and smoothness (no lapping required!). If you have ever dealt with generic coolers, shot out from the die, chopped and boxed "raw", you will notice that they are not quite as flat, and usually have fine "ridges" on the cooling surface.

Obviously this is detrimental to ideal heat transfer. The PFH6035 heat sink utilizes an array of hexagonal pin fins to dissipate heat. After close examination, I can understand why the thing costs so much to purchase, simply because the workmanship and quality is so superior.

Installation

1: Place the heat sink on a flat surface.
2: Push the retention clip into place.
3: Align the intake cover on top of the heat sink.
4: Place the fan on top of the intake cover (I have it blowing on top of the heat sink, whereas Alpha recommends having it suck air away from the heat sink - the choice is yours, but I always find a 1 degree Celsius advantage with the impingement setup
5: Place one washer on top of each of the four holes atop the fan.
6: Insert the screws through the top of the washers, and then secure the whole assembly by tightening the screws.
7: Take the thermal paste, turn it side ways, ah not really, just apply a thin layer of the thermal paste to the contact area of the CPU (Celeron 366 in my case.)
8: Place the heat sink on top of the CPU, and secure the heat sink to the socket with the retention clip.
9: Plug the fan into the 3-pin fan connector on the motherboard.
10: Power the computer up, and have fun overclocking!

Enough of that, time to take this little silver heatsink for a test run, and get some ideas on its thermal performance...