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Thermal Take Golden Orb II Review

       Thermaltake heat sinks have been the choice for overclockers since the days when overclocking the Celeron 300 MHz "A" and Celeron 600MHz processors were quite popular.  Back then, the original Golden Orb cooled down these processors quite well, and were found in many PC enthusiasts systems.  After a few years, Thermaltake continues to innovate the PC enthusiast market with the successor to the Golden Orb, the Golden Orb II.

Here are the specifications from ThermalTake's product page:

In the box you will find the heat sink itself, an installation guide, K8 mounting bracket, LGA 775 clips, screws, and some thermal paste.

Thermaltake has decided to keep the same circular fin style, that the original Golden Orb featured.  One noticeable change is the addition of the 100mm fan.  I did not like the shiny 'rainbow' color of the blades, they reduce the professionalism factor of this heat sink.  The large fan features three LED lights in the center, giving the fan a cool glow when it is in operation.

The bottom of this heat sink is all copper which is great for conducting the processor's heat. It is relatively smooth and nicely polished. The copper bottom branches off to the fins, which are aluminum.  The large fins give the heat sink a large cooling area to dissipate the heat.  There are a total of 66 fins.

Here is a comparison in size between the original Golden Orb and the new Golden Orb II.  An amazing size increase, to combat the increasing CPU temperatures.  At 752 grams, this heat sink is on the heavy side, so be sure to secure your motherboard to the case.

Installation on a K8 (S754, S939, S940) motherboard starts with removing the existing bracket on the motherboard and replacing it with Thermal Take's bracket.  Note that the included thermal paste was used.

The included screws and bolts are fastened to create a secure bond between the heat sink and processor

Finally, here is a picture of the finished installation.  Notice that this heat sink takes up a large amount of space.  During the testing I found that the heat sink did not interfere with any of the motherboard connections or ram slots, which is good.

Test System:

-AMD Athlon 64 2800+ (Clawhammer 512) @ 1.55v

-Soltek SL-K8AN2E-GR nForce 3 250GB Motherboard

-160GB Western Digital SATA Hard Drive

-1GB of DDR400/PC3200 memory

-Antec Mid-Tower Case

-**Case Temperature of 95 F **Load Temperature was taken after ten minutes of running a program called CPU Burn-in, which keeps the CPU usage at 100%

Looking at the results of the test, Thermal Take's solution is the perfect upgrade from the stock AMD heat sink. I would also recommend this heat sink for mild overclocking, as it handles and dissipates heat very well. At the current retail price of ~$35, it is a great value for anyone looking to add some robust CPU cooling to their computers.

Pros:

-Robust performance

-Quiet Fan

-LED's

Cons:

-Rainbow fan (lacks the pro "look")

Techaddicts Computer Reviews would like to give the ThermalTake Golden Orb II a 9.0 out of 10 and an innovation award for continuing the Golden Orb tradition.

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