As you said, the copper core is a good indication of quality. But the biggest thing I look for is if they use the screw in or the snap in mounting brackets/mechanisms. Oh and copper core or not, weight is a good indication. The only other I can think of is if you can look up the CFM of the fans they use that would be helpful. If nothing else stockpile them all and cherry pick through them before dumping them off at the scrappers 😀

For 775, I know there's an older one that's relatively tall and quiet, and there's a newer one with the heatsink maybe half the size of the older model. This one is a lot noisier.

I found some photos on Tomshardware, comparing an older S775 cooler with a new one for a 130W Pentium D. It has a larger copper base and more cooling fins:

At the moment I have the one on the left, so will look out for the one on the right.

The newer Core 2 Duo coolers are indeed much shorter.

Still got to find more information on the S478 coolers.

I will definitely grab a lot of them, I can always throw them away later.

The cooler which came with my Pentium D doesn't look like that and has the smaller copper spot. That doesn't mean much, given I got the chip ahead of launch and it wasn't boxed, so it might just be that "Arthur" included a regular cooler for single core chips.

Intel must have altered something though, as it proved adequate for the Pentium D at 2.80GHz. However, it was incapable of cooling a Core 2 Duo E8400 at stock clock to a satisfactory level, so if the Core 2 coolers were shorter they must have changed the materials or some other characteristic. I wouldn't know, because I have never owned a new Core 2 machine. My friend had one, but it died within minutes of him giving it to me and I have no idea what happened to the cooler, I suspect I either gave it to somebody or threw it away because I had no plans to do anything where I would need it, but I do remember it being shorter and I think it was an E6400 chip. The only Core 2 machines I have owned used non-stock cooling, one a cheap Akasa heatsink and another was on liquid cooling - the same liquid cooling the Pentium D was upgraded to and ran fine with, again showing a temp increase from the Core 2. Both ran hotter than hell and I always run the fans at 100% speed.

The reason I am writing this for anyone that finds this thread on Google later and uses the information, is to make clear that the size and shape of the cooler don't necessarily mean much. If you decided to use an Intel cooler with no idea what chip it was supposed to cool you are risking excessive temperatures. There will always be enough thermal mass that it is safe to do, but you should monitor the temperature under load for a while to make sure. The best solution is still, as was always known and likely already stated in here somewhere, to for out for a third party cooler - indeed, the Akasa proved to be just fine and wasn't annoyingly loud (At least, no louder than the Intel ones) and as the cheapest block of aluminum in the shop I can then only guess more costly coolers might perform even better.

More copper the better! By the way, I run into two different boxed Intel socket 370 coolers recently as well. One comes with a black heatsink and has a slightly bigger fan while another one has a silver heatsink and comes with a smaller fan. It probably doesn't make much difference and not that interesting, but may be it's new to someone like me.

The only black ones I saw for Socket 370 were for Coppermine Celerons, but the larger fan makes me think otherwise as mine didn't have this, essentially appearing as the regular aluminum Heatsink and Fan assembly but with what appeared to be black anodized metal instead. Had slightly different clips on them.

HighTreason wrote:

The only black ones I saw for Socket 370 were for Coppermine Celerons, but the larger fan makes me think otherwise as mine didn't have this, essentially appearing as the regular aluminum Heatsink and Fan assembly but with what appeared to be black anodized metal instead. Had slightly different clips on them.

I'll double check this week, you might be right about the fan size. I purchased it from Japan in used condition, but it's a regular boxed Pentium III Coppermine processor, unless someone switched the cooler.

the p3 650 I have came with a black Intel cooler I think

I've been using the 65nm e6300 cooler for many years, it's currently running with my 3GHz I5 quite well, I've also tried it with a 65nm C2Q at 3Ghz but it was to close to the limit even with low voltages,
it's like the Q6600 cooler but with a slower fan
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/Cooler-Charts-C … ew-30301-6.html

this article has some interesting info,

Here we have two coolers. They appear the same size, but one has a copper core. I will check the fan speed when I get home to see if there is a difference.

The copper one was from a machine with a Core 2 Duo E4500 CPU. Don't know about the copper one.

One clue is the amps on the fan. More amps = heavier duty fan.
The speed is useful but not as good an indicator because of various blade designs.
One fan can be faster than another but not move as much air because of the blades.
Amps will tell you how much work the fan does so it gives a better idea of how much air it moves in comparison to another fan.
Same-same with watts.
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It's not 100% but for socket 771/775 (and I think since then) Intel generally uses the copper versions for CPUs with TDPs of more than 85 watts.
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On earlier CPUs copper was probably used at lower TDPs due to heatsinks with less mass and/or less surface area.
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115x stock coolers do not fit 775 boards, but some 115x boards will take a 775 cooler.

Intel uses several OEMs for the fans, with varying quality. Some seize over the years, some just keep on going.

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

I will definitely grab a lot of them, I can always throw them away later.

At least save the fans.
They do wear out and they aren't getting more common.
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Shame - I was looking for one of these a couple of months back but I found it quite hard to find one so I had to resort to a cheap knockoff from China that will probably have the fan wear out after a few months.

@Phil: Maybe you can convince your friend to put them up on eBay? I'd gladly take a few of them off your hands for you 😀 They may not be exciting but as you say they get the job done and they are pretty reliable too.

Well so far all coolers are aluminium. Just got this single copper core cooler 😒

I'm really after high end coolers. Like a 478 cooler for 3.4 GHz or a 775 cooler for 3.8 GHz.

For lower end processors, there are readily available substitutes from StarTech or eBay Asia.

PCBONEZ wrote:

One clue is the amps on the fan. More amps = heavier duty fan. The speed is useful but not as good an indicator because of vario […]
Show full quote

One clue is the amps on the fan. More amps = heavier duty fan.
The speed is useful but not as good an indicator because of various blade designs.
One fan can be faster than another but not move as much air because of the blades.
Amps will tell you how much work the fan does so it gives a better idea of how much air it moves in comparison to another fan.
Same-same with watts.

In a textbook sense, it tells you how much "work" the fan motor can safely do, but you can't really know how "good" the fan is without measuring the actual airflow.

A really poorly designed fan can draw a lot of current (probably make a lot of noise and get quite warm) while moving not much air.

Phil, if you wanted a truly objective comparison of the fans, you could put together a test jig with an inexpensive anemometer. (Then do some maths to convert wind speed + diameter of apperatus to airflow in CFM)

I will definitely do some sort of testing at some point.

SquallStrife wrote:

In a textbook sense, it tells you how much "work" the fan motor can safely do, but you can't really know how "good" the fan is w […]
Show full quote

PCBONEZ wrote:

One clue is the amps on the fan. More amps = heavier duty fan. The speed is useful but not as good an indicator because of vario […]
Show full quote

One clue is the amps on the fan. More amps = heavier duty fan.
The speed is useful but not as good an indicator because of various blade designs.
One fan can be faster than another but not move as much air because of the blades.
Amps will tell you how much work the fan does so it gives a better idea of how much air it moves in comparison to another fan.
Same-same with watts.

In a textbook sense, it tells you how much "work" the fan motor can safely do, but you can't really know how "good" the fan is without measuring the actual airflow.

A really poorly designed fan can draw a lot of current (probably make a lot of noise and get quite warm) while moving not much air.

Phil, if you wanted a truly objective comparison of the fans, you could put together a test jig with an inexpensive anemometer. (Then do some maths to convert wind speed + diameter of apperatus to airflow in CFM)

Technically you are correct but he's comparing assemblies with the same fan blade design so in this case it doesn't matter that much.
Looking at the amps is a quick easy way to see which have the beefier motors.
I think if he showed up to pick out free fans with test jig and a flow meter his benefactor might call the guys with the white padded truck.
.

^^ Keep it simple 😊

I hooked up a bunch of coolers and non of the Intel coolers I have went over 3000 rpm. The newer ones are more around the 2000 rpm. However, I don't know if there is any logic / temperature sensing going on inside the fan, it just feels as if these could go a lot faster. All of them are pretty quiet.

Tried an AMD cooler (stock cooler for 125W Phenom II with heatpipes), that one does around 5000 rpm 😀

I rescued a Pentium 4 machine just today as well, didn't have a proper look, but it has a S775 board and a 3 GHZ Pentium 4 installed. It has an after-market cooler, got to check it out when I have some time.

PCBONEZ wrote:

I think if he showed up to pick out free fans with test jig and a flow meter his benefactor might call the guys with the white padded truck.
.

I was thinking more of a review video scenario! 😉