Misc. Ramblings

As many of you know, the so called Prescott core Intel processors run very hot. How hot? We have a 2.8GHz that idles at 72-73 degrees Celsius (with the stock fan) with a maximum designed temp of about 75 degrees. Obviously, such a high idle temperature is not conducive to CPU long life nor high speeds since it only needs to heat up by a few degrees before it hits it maximum temperature.

Intel announced and demonstrated this month one solution to this heat problem - the Intel Advanced Liquid Cooling Technology (link goes to the Hardware Secrets site since I can't find an Intel page).

Intel's technology uses only two parts: a combination pump/permanently sealed reservoir and a heat exchanger/fan. Connecting the two parts are metal, rather than flexible plastic, tubes. The system is designed to require no maintenance and reportedly runs at about 4dbA (in most rooms, this would be essentially silent).

Although I'm sure this works, I'm not too thrilled about mixing water and electricity.

Yes, you can use other ways of cooling the CPU, such as the Zalman line of fans. And a good job these fans do. But, if you don't have the space to fit one of these huge and heavy fans, such as when you are building a small form factor PC, the choice is AMD.

Hence, I won't be buying any Intel processors until they figure out how to control the heat better. Until then, I'm quite happy to use AMD processors that run substantially cooler than an equivalent Intel chip.

Aloha!