Low Profile Socket-A/Socket-370 Cooler Roundup - December 2001

Thermaltake TFCF014-1

Thermaltake's 1U cooler is larger than most other 1U coolers, but consists only of aluminum.

Installation

Installation of Thermaltake's TFCF014-1 cooler can be a bit tricky. Thermaltake advertises this cooler only for use with Intel CPUs; it should, however, also be suitable for AMD CPUs - provided that great care is being taken during installation. A screwdriver is required. The cooler comes with a preinstalled thermal pad; for testing we removed the pad and replaced it with thermal compound. We'd recommend that you do the same for better cooling performance. On their website,

The cooler's fan blows towards the heatsink. Reversing the fan is not possible, because the screws are too short, and additional washers would be required - otherwise the fan blades spin dangerously close to the heatsink's fins.

Performance and noise, conclusion

Thermaltake's cooler performs rather well, especially considering that this is an all-aluminum solution. As all other coolers, it performs better under 1U conditions if the fan exhausts air from the heatsink (which isn't possible with the supplied screws). If the manufacturer does something about this problem, then we'll definitely recommend this cooler, since it is inexpensive and also among the quietest coolers in this roundup.