Swiftech MC370-2 Active Socket Cooler

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Swiftech has been around since 1994 and it's best known for their MC-1000 and MC-2000 active coolers. You may remember a few months ago the buzz they created with those two products. The MC 2000 cooler in particular was and still is one of the premier overclocking coolers you can find in the market today. The MC-1000 is the small version of the MC 2000. Both of those coolers enabled overclockers to go that extra step in their overclocking quests. Enter their newest creation, the MC 370. The MC 370 is designed to fit socketed CPUs such as the Celeron PPGA as well as the new socketed coppermine Pentium IIIs versus the MC 1000 and MC 2000 series which were designed for slot CPUs such as the Pentium IIs, IIIs, and of course the Athlons.

So how does Swiftech's newest creation stack up against Swiftech's two most successful products? Let's take a look at some facts first. The MC 370 comes in three flavors. The MC 370, the MC 370-1 and the MC 370-2. The MC-370 features the same heatsink and fan as the the rest but without the TEC, the MC 370-1 features a weak 30mm TEC, and the coolest of them all, the MC 370-2 features a 40mm TEC.

In this review we are just going to concentrate on the MC 370-2. As mentioned earlier, the MC 370-2 is an active cooler using the same technology as the MC 1000 and MC 2000, so it uses the same 40mm, 78 Watt TEC as the MC 1000 and the MC 2000, but it only sports half the heatsink area of the MC 1000. The MC 370 is meant to attach into a socket 370 motherboard and/or a Slotket adapter for a Slot-1 mainboard. The hefty 78 Watt TEC demands its own separate power supply in addition to your computer's power supply.

Looking at the specs below, you can clearly see you need a power supply that can provide 8 amps at 12 volts which translates to approximately a 300 watt power supply. Are you running a dual Celeron setup? Then multiply those power requirements by two. Let's take a look at it more closely:

Heatsink: 2.5"x 2.5"x 0.5"
Peltier: 40mm
Peltier Pwr Req: 8 amps @ 12 Volts
Fan: 60mm

The one thing that we need to point out here is the rather beefy 1/2" heatsink base, which according to Swiftech translates to much better heat dissipation. The only drawback that we can see from the design perspective, is the fact that the heatsink is only half the size of the famous MC-1000, and therefore it wouldn't be able to draw the heat sufficiently enough from the TEC to cool the CPU to such a degree to allow for mad/crazy overclocking.