Intel Pentium 4 1.8GHz: One step closer

Hot at 1.8GHz?

The first thing we noticed about our 1.8GHz evaluation sample was that the heatsink Intel supplied with it was much larger than what we were used to.  At the same time, the fan it used was extremely quiet.  The heatsink was warm at best during our tests and because the fan only spun at 3,000RPM you could barely hear it over the fan in our test bed’s Sparkle Power Supply.  For comparison, most Athlon coolers operate at over 5,000RPM and generate quite a bit of noise (although there are some notable exceptions).  Intel has always been known for bundling very quiet fans with their processors. 

One thing that the Pentium 4 still has going for it is that the heatsink assembly makes a lot more sense that previous socketed heatsink designs.  Because of the processor’s integrated heat spreader there is no danger of damaging the fragile CPU core underneath, which has left some Thunderbird/Duron owners with an AMD keychain instead of a processor on their hands.  One of the biggest problems that this heatsink assembly caused was that it required a new case because the heatsink retention mechanism used to mount directly to the case.  Most newer motherboards come with clip on retention mechanisms that clip onto the motherboard instead of screwing into the case, thus removing the requirement for a new case for the Pentium 4. 

Of course the ATX12V Power Supply requirement is still present.  There are some regular ATX power supplies that will work without the new ATX12V connector on a Pentium 4 motherboard however if you want to take the safe route you will want to go for a Power Supply that is guaranteed to work with the Pentium 4 (it should have the 2x2 ATX12V connector). 

The elusive processor clock throttling issue which has been spread all over the web did not plague us during our testing of the 1.8GHz processor, nor has it with any Pentium 4 processor we’ve tested to date.