Completely (read: every piece of hardware in this review) sponsored by Comtechnology we are proud to present you with the following:

Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to Madshrimps for another exciting edition of reviewing sensation. In the black corner wearing an 80mm fan, the undisputed champion of the world, Mister Alpha 8942. In the silver corner is the challenger, 2 times heavyweight champion of the world, now getting ready to make a come back after a long time of absence, ladies and gentleman, Mister Swiftech MCX4000. Let’s get ready to rumble…

The Playgrounds:

Tonight´s battle will be fought in the well known city of Antwerp located in Belgium. The outside weather is cloudy but no rain has fallen yet. Inside the temp is around 23°C and during the match it will be kept the same at all times to prevent confusion among our contestants.

The system used for testing is:
- P4 1.8A - An Asus P4B533-E RAID
- Apacer PC2700 512Mb
- Radeon 8500LE
- 3Com 10/100
- Quantum HDD

The HD got a clean install of Windows 98SE powered with the latest Asus PCProbe utility.

Each contestant will be faced with the same CPU being clocked at 2 different speed , being:



and


The CPU will be heated up by running a little program called Prime95. Both the time to get to the hotest point as the time it takes to return to the idle temp are recorded.
The system was not installed in a case so the displayed temps in the results might be lower then the ones you might get. We are comparing 2 heatsinks so the difference in temperature is what we are looking for! Each heatsink is equipped with it´s default fan it is delivered with, to give you an idea of how the "out of the box" product performs.

We are all set up here and ready to go meet the undisputed champion...



The Playgrounds

Alpha PAL 8942 M81:

In the black corner we have the PAL8942M82 who showed up here for a mere 54.57EUR and weighs a healthy 0.425kg.
Equipped with an 80x15mm FAN that does 20CFM it can remove some of the warm air away from your processor.

If we open the box we end up with the following content:


A detailed instruction sheet that explains how to install the heatsink step by step, alot of detail and clear pictures makes following the guidelines a piece of cake!

Before he enters the playground we ask him for a few snapshots, so here they are:



A lot of time was spend on details, notice the clean cut-out and perfect assembly

There were also some great improvements for the way the heatsink is attached to the motherboard. Or better how the small standoffs are tightened. The PAL8045 used for AMD systems uses plastic flange nuts, while here we have metal ones. The difference is noticeable when removing the heatsink. This time around the standoffs actually stay on the motherboard, instead of coming loose and having as a result that you had to remove the whole motherboard to properly detach the heatsink. Alpha learned from their mistakes and the metal nuts work flawlessly!



Hmmmmm... Metal good, plastic baaaad


As mentioned earlier, this heatsink comes with an 80x15mm fan, they also have an 80x25mm fan in the M81 edition. So to avoid any problems if might you want to change fans, they provided 2 differents sets of screws!



The moment has arrived, the screws are tightened, the tension of the springs grows, our first contestant has entered the playground!




Let´s find out who is waiting in the silver corner...

Swiftech MCX4000:

The AMD heatsink champion comes to the P4 side of town. Weighing in at 0.580kg this is one heavy badass. He also comes pre-equipped with a fan, 75x15mm providing almost 37cfm of airflow. (A normal 80mm fan can also be installed on the heatsink without any problems)
Packed together with a tube of Artic Alumina for optimal performance it´s entry in the P4 world will be strong. His current price in Belgium is not yet known, but we will update the information as soon as he makes it public!



The provided instruction sheet is easy to follow and explains in few steps how to install the HS.



Unfortunately they included plastic flange nuts, so when removing the heatsink I ended up with the standoffs still connected to the screws, instead of the motherboard. And it doesn´t stop there, the standoffs are completely round, so stopping them from turning around is a lot harder then alfa´s square standoffs.

Update: Since the publishing of this article, Swiftech has changed the supplied flange nuts with metal ones and also changed the way the springs are attached to the heatsink, this way the problem mentioned before will no longer occur! thumbs up @ Swiftech!


new and improved way to attach the standoffs, square and no longer plastic but metal!

When trying to screw down the heatsink on the motherboard I noticed it was pushing hard against some capacitors next to the CPU socket, I put some insulation tape around them "in case of" but these problems should no longer occur on current Mobo/Heatsink combinations. Either Asus or Swiftech didn´t keep to specs, but I´ve not read of this problem anywhere on the net, so It must be the motherboard :/


Heatsink touching the capacitors next to the CPU socket

Of course not all is bad, and I must say I was surprised at how silent the 70mm fan was. It is only a bit louder then the Intel fan, put pushed way more air!. The reason the fan is so silent may have something to do with the following:


Removing sound from the trembling of the fan against the heatsink, it works pretty good!

Our second contestant is now ready for battle, let´s get it on!

Visual Comparing:

Viewed from the top it shows the alpha being slightly bigger



But viewed from the side you notice the base of the Swiftech being "fatter"



They sure are quite shiny



Comparing the "Old" MCX478 (right) to his new brother the MCX4000



The bars are remarkably smaller on the MCX4000 providing better airflow

The Referee:

I used the standard Intel cooler for reference, so results from this default device are included in the results!


ALU cooling power from Intel, silent and hot

The Results:

P4 1.8@1.8Ghz using 1.5v
The difference between the standard Intel and the top performer is only 4°C





P4 1.8@1.8Ghz using 1.5v
Here you can clearly see the cooling power of the Swiftech, in 3 minutes it is already back at it´s idle temp.
The difference with the Alpha is already quite noticeable





P4 1.8@2.7Ghz using 1.7v
The Swiftech pulls away from the other 2 while the Alpha is almost having problems remaining under 50°C.





P4 1.8@2.7Ghz using 1.7v
The Intel cooler really dissipates heat at a very slow rate.
The Alpha is a lot more efficient but still loses to the Swiftech



The conclusion and some extreme overclocking can be found on the next page...

Overclocking:

I´m sure you are wondering why I didn´t show you how far I could go with each heatsink when it came to overclocking. As the material isn´t mine I don´t want to take any risks by putting alot of voltage through the P4 for a long time to check for stability/loaded temp. The Asus mobo allows for up to 1.8v for the northwood P4. With either the Alpha or Swiftech installed I was able to boot at this speed:



This was the maximum limit of the CPU, trying anything higher resulted in blue screens @ Windows boot or no boot at all.

In conclusion:

Both these heatsinks are of very high quality and each one has it´s advantages and disadvantages. But in the end I would have to choose the Swiftech, which performs excellent and has a silent fan. The Alpha´s installation and removal was very easy and deserves to be mentioned. In the end of course it´s the results that counts and there the numbers speak for themselves. If you want high clock speed and low temps you go Swiftech.

However when you want to run your CPU @ default speed and voltage, then there is no real need to change that Intel cooler you have now. At low vcore it performs quite well and the silence of the fan is a real plus.

I would like to thank Comtechnology,a great shop with great service, for providing me with all the hardware, thanks!

I hope this review was helpfull, if you have any questions or remarks don´t hesitate to click this link (forum)