Assembly and Installation

VTMS technology I mentioned above (Versatile Tool-Free Multiplatform System) doesn’t require you to use any tools or screws as you are mounting the cooler on the mainboard. You only have to insert the appropriate couple of clips into the Infinity’s bottom heatsink and fix the cooler on the CPU. It’s all simple and easy in the manual, but only outside the system case. If you are trying to do that in your PC case, you will find it highly awkward to hitch the fastening mechanism on Socket AM2/754/939/940 on the jags of the standard plastic frame or to press down on the heads of the “nails?of the LGA775 fastener because the heatsink’s bottom plates are too close, providing little room for your fingers. And it is next to impossible to turn or unhitch the LGA775 fastener. That’s why I advise you to mount the Scythe Infinity on your mainboard out of your system case in order to avoid misaligning the cooler.

As concerns optimal orientation of the cooler on the CPU socket, on Socket AM2/754/939/940 platforms this will depend only on the holes in the mainboard and on the orientation of the retention frame. It is desired that these holes were placed in perpendicular to the rear panel of the case so that you could orient the cooler’s heatsink in the most optimal way and achieve maximum efficiency. Alas, the holes are in parallel to the rear panel on my ABIT AN8 SLI mainboard, so the Infinity’s heatsink can only be installed in one position, while its fan in either of two positions:

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As you can see, neither position of the fan can be considered good. In the photo on the left the fan receives air from the hot graphics card (I use a GeForce 7950 GX2 in my tests, so this would mean heating up rather than cooling the CPU heatsink because the scorching-hot air from the overclocked card’s blower would be exhausted upwards, right to the blades of the Infinity fan). In the photo on the right, the position of the fan is inefficient as is mentioned by the manufacturer in the user manual and is also confirmed by my own tests on an open testbed with an Intel processor (the difference is 3-4°C under peak CPU load). There is not much space in front of the fan due to the large dimensions of the cooler (its width, in this particular case).

As for installing this cooler on an LGA775 platform, I should warn all the owners of mainboards from the popular ASUS P5B series that the cooler can be mounted on them in one position only (fortunately, it is the correct position). If you turn the cooler around so that its bottom heatsink was in parallel to the rear panel of the system case, the cooler’s base lies right on the coils of the CPU power circuit and you can’t close the latches:

Considering that the Mine model is fastened in the same way, you may have such problems with it, too.

Winding up this section of the review, I want to add that the fans were fastened to the Scythe Infinity heatsink in such a way that their top was on the same level with the top aluminum plate of the heatsink. That is, the fans were always blowing at the cooler’s bottom heatsink.

Specifications

The following table lists the specifications of the coolers I have described above and of their opponents.