Antec JetCool Socket 370 Cooler Review - PAGE 1

Antec, a company known for their solid housing products such as the SX-830 we reviewed & the SX-1240 we just got in, has just released their JetCool line of heatsink fans to the retail market. The JetCool line is comprised of three HSFs: the Athlon (Socket A) Cooler, the P4 (Socket 423) Cooler, and finally the P3 (Socket 370) version which we’re taking a look at today. The cooler comes packaged in a clear plastic molded container designed to be hung on metal prongs (just like in your local corner store for bagged candy). It comes with a concise instruction set with some illustrations on the colored package insert.

When you take out the sink from the packaging, you’ll notice an interesting design as it features aluminum radial folding fins wrapped around a central copper core. The core measures at 29-mm diameter by 34 mm high. The aluminum fins are not bonded to the copper core. The heat transfer from the core to the fins is done by a layer of thermal grease which lies between the base of the aluminum fins and the core.

Specifications

The Installation and Test

The cooler was tested with an Intel Pentium III and a Celeron CPU. It's one of the lightest heat sinks I've ever used – weighing in a measly 135 grams. The fan hooks in through a standard 3-pin fan header. The base of the sink came with some pretty standard looking thermal tape. Antec uses a two-lug retention design rather than the traditional single lug clip design. Also, they designed a rubber thumb latch clip, which made it fairly easy to mount and dismount from the socket’s lugs. They have one end of the clip attached to the right and the other end of the clip attaches to the left.

Although Antec stated 5500 RPM for the fan speed in the specs, it showed a constant 5625 RPM during testing. In comparison to other fans I have worked with, this is a very quiet one with the hum being hardly noticeable. Antec’s specs stated 30dBA for the associated sound levels. Even though with speed being higher than the specs, I was a bit disappointed to see the temperature on the CPU came close to 51ºC.

Test System

Noise:		85%     (the fan was nearly silent but cannot removable)

Installation:	90%     (very easy to install and remove)

Performance:	74%     (not seem very solid compare with others)

Overall Score: 83%

The Jet Cool is a fairly standard performing HeatSink Fan. It is an average cooling solution for the Pentium III and Celeron socket 370 CPU. Expect to see a review of the Socket A Version soon.

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