Being a gamer that does not mind the odd overclock, my computer tends to overheat when it comes to running some of the latest and greatest games like Doom 3, and Half-Life 2. The standard cooling units which come with the CPU's seem to be ok, but eventually you are going to get sick of having to power down you computer every hour, opening the case door, or bringing in that extra pedestal fan to increase the airflow into your case. It can be a bit embarrassing when you rock up to your local LAN party and have to wait it out half the time.
But, finally here is a top performance solution which will also add that little aesthetic jealousy to your system. Introducing Thermaltake's Beetle CL-P0086. The Beetle comes with an impressive looking shell and offers great cooling potential with relatively minimum fuss. It has the ability to adapt to many different motherboards for both AMD and Intel chipsets, and comes with everything you need to install it yourself.
The cooling technology consists of copper pipes soldered to aluminum fins to provide great heat displacement, and the casing surrounding the heatsink itself channels the air directly over and through the unit to maximize its operation. Also, with the included variable speed control units and the option to include a secondary fan to increase air flow (not included), the ability to run a very cool system at a quiet noise level is very achievable.
Today we will be comparing this heatsink to the Gigabyte 3D Rocket Pro, and are expecting some competitive results. Priced at around $50 US, we shall also see if it is worth your money.
