Intel's Core i7 Stock CPU Cooler Revealed

[Rob Williams]

From our front-page news:

With Intel's Core i7 launch right around the corner (~2 months), it's about time we get a glimpse of the CPU cooler we'll be receiving with the retail product, right? Well, someone on a Chinese forum was lucky enough to score what appears to be a retail packaging (minus the graphics) and also the completely revamped cooler.

As you can see in the image below, the new cooler doesn't change the overall design, but it appears thin copper fins replace the somewhat-thicker aluminum ones on the previous models. The fan itself is also larger and lacks a "guard" of sorts and happens to be completely clear. Overall, it looks rather sharp and should be a huge improvement over what we've seen before.

I still have to gripe about the use of the thumb-mounts, though. I know I'm not alone in thinking that these are less-than-ideal and only result in sore thumbs, but they continue to be used not only on Intel's own coolers, but some others as well. The benefit of the thumb-mounts is of course ease-of-installation, but when your thumbs are sore afterwards, is it even worth it?

Whether or not this cooler will be included with all of the Core i7 models, or just the higher-end models is yet to be seen. It shouldn't be too much longer before we find out.

Source: Mobile 01 (Chinese Forum), Via: Fudzilla
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[Kougar]

That is rather odd, Intel did one of those hybrid AlCu coolers, just like a Zalman aluminum cooler. Most of it is aluminum with a few areas of copper.

Regardless, those are thin fins that should conduct and dissipate heat significantly better than the extruded, huge- fin design of the current ones.

I do hate the mounting design, but I never had an issue pushing those clips into place. The issue was the clips would not always fully slip through the motherboard... after a little wear they would often end up mashed against the motherboard instead of both "prongs" on a clip sliding straight through. Result would be a cooler with one or two clips not mounted and very high CPU temps... and it would always be a different pin each time I'd take it off to remount.

 

[Rob Williams]

The issue was the clips would not always fully slip through the motherboard... after a little wear they would often end up mashed against the motherboard instead of both "prongs" on a clip sliding straight through. Result would be a cooler with one or two clips not mounted and very high CPU temps... and it would always be a different pin each time I'd take it off to remount.

Yes! That's the problem with these and a few other mounts. At least if you use screws, that's never going to happen (well, perhaps after a few thousand mounts perhaps).