Power Cooler PCH123 (7020) Review - PAGE 1

CPU cooling has become one of the hottest topics in the personal computer market. The fact that average users are starting to be aware of the damage that heat can do to their computer, and that hardcore overclockers push the limits of their cores to the limits have encouraged companies to develop all sorts of new designs, some which result in a better cooling performance, and others which do not. Today we have a specimen from POWER COOLER. Let’s see how their PCH123 fits in the big picture.

Specs

The first thing I noticed when taking the cooler out of the box is its unusually large size. It has a cooling fan that is almost as big as a small case fan. The Tx70202H fan comes in a double blade design (which I think look pretty neat), with a total of fourteen blades. And below the blades sits a huge aluminum heatsink that has a rather unique touch to it. In fact, on the first time looking at it, I thought it looked somewhat like a meadow (yes, a meadow of fins). You might be able to see what I mean from the picture (with a little imagination perhaps ;) ). The fins are cut out into different heights and shapes. For those of you who know your stuff on heatsinks, you’ll know that the irregular shapes are there to increase surface area, which in turn enhances the heatsink’s heat dissipation.

It is always nice to see a good-looking product. However, besides its physical appearance, the PCH123(7020) cooler doesn’t get much of an edge over other competitors. With today’s standards, a fan that big spinning at 5000RPM and moving only 30CFM of air is just not good enough. And think you would expect quite a bit of noise from that fan? No doubt. When this baby spins up, it makes some noticeable noise. Although not terribly loud, it’s enough to annoy many users.

The PCH123(7020) comes with a thin layer thermal pad. In fact, I can’t confidently say that it was a thermal pad because the cooler performed like without one (perhaps just some whiteout spill =p). So I had to scrape it off and apply some of my own thermal compound instead. You’ll see the comparison in the test results.

Installation

I was reluctant to install the unit on my CPU at first because, upon first inspection, I noticed that it had a rather rigid clip (an image of cracking my core came to mind *shiver*). But for the sake of this review, I proceeded anyways =P. And it turned out to be almost effortless – virtually a push down of the clip and a bit of fixing at the ends and it was ready to be tested.

The installation doesn’t require any tools; all you need is your hands. It’ll make the job even easier if you have a small screwdriver handy, however. And removal of the unit is just as easy (again, all you need is your hands). For those of you who are worrying about the size of this cooler may not fit in your box, don’t, unless you have a mini tower. Mine is a cramped mid tower, and it installed just fine.

Test Procedures

The test was run on a PIII 733MHz FCPGA Socket 370 CPU. (Note: Although this model is recommended for AMD processors, it works on almost all socket designs.) The PCH123(7020) was tested against the Intel stock unit. Idle temperatures were taken after 10 minutes of 0% CPU usage, and full load temperatures were taken after 10 minutes of 100% CPU usage.

Test Results

As you can tell from the table, the thermal pad didn’t do a good job, so I had to redo the test with some of my own silicone grease. Once replaced, the heatsink started to work normally, with a full load temperature 7 degrees lower than the stock cooler.

The performance of the PCH123(7020) is very satisfactory. Though it doesn’t bring down the idle temperature, it manages to keep the deviation of the full load temperature to a fair amount. This is due to the linear behaviour of the design. The heat dissipation is linearly dependent on the difference between the CPU junction and ambient temperatures. The details are beyond the scope of this review.

Conclusion

The PCH123(7020) might not be the best cooler in the market, it sure is one of the easiest to install/remove. If you are a beginner at this cooling business and you need some cooling for your CPU real bad, then this will be a good choice for you. However, a few facts worth restating are that it does make quite a bit of noise, that it is oversized and may not fit in some smaller cases, and that it requires additional thermal compound in order to operate normally. Overall, it delivers a solid performance.

Rating

Overall Score: 79%