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

Alpha PAL153U

Installation

The PAL153U comes with a spring wire clip that is similar to the ones we've seen on older Alpha coolers for Socket CPUs. Both installation and deinstallation are easy, and the clip holds the heatsink firmly. Thermal compound is included. The fan orientation can be chosen: If the fan should exhaust air from the heatsink (better in a 1U environment), the included washers are placed between fan and heatsink, so that the rotating fan blades don't touch the heatsink's pins. If the fan should blow towards the heatsink, the washers should be placed above the fan.

Performance and noise, conclusion

The Alpha PAL153U's performance is very good, but depends very much on the fan orientation. In a 1U environment, it is better to let the fan exhaust air from the heatsink; in other configurations where there is more space above the cooler (e.g. 2U+ servers), the fan should blow towards the sink. In any case, it is a good idea to compare temperatures in both configurations after installation, since it depends on many variables (such as ventilation concept of the case, location of air intakes) whilc configuration is better.

Of all coolers in this roundup, the PAL153U was only outperformed by the CoolJag unit.

As usual, cooling performance has its price, when it comes to noises: The PAL153U was the second noisiest cooler in this roundup. Still, compared to high performance desktop coolers, it's noise level is still bearable.