Installation Tips

The cooler is compatible with all contemporary socket types. In order to install it onto the board, you don’t need to remove it from the system case. If you have an AMD K8 or K10 processors, you should use the bundled swing-clip that catches on to the hooks on the standard plastic frame and locks the cooler in place with a tag:

The distance from the lower heatsink plate to the top of the mainboard PCB is about 40mm, which is enough room for all sorts of components in the area around the processor socket.

If you wish to install XIGMATEK Achilles S1284 onto an LGA 775 mainboard, you have to attach two retention brackets with plastic locks to the cooler base using bundled retention screws:

They use no backplate in this case, so the mainboard PCB may bend a little bit with the cooler installed. It is not critical, but could have been better if they had a backplate, because as we all know coolers with heatpipe direct touch technology are very sensitive to proper contact with the CPU heat-spreader.

The XIGMATEK cooler looks very stylish inside the system case:

By the way, the cooler should be installed with the heatpipes across the inscription on the CPU heat-spreader, because coolers with heatpipe direct touch work their best when positioned like that (the improvement is about 2-4ºC depending on the CPU heat dissipation). I have already pointed this fact out to you in my previous reviews.

The cooler looks even more charming with the white LED highlighting, especially at night:

The MSRP for XIGMATEK Achilles S1284 is set at $44.99, which is a very decent price for a cooling solution of this type.