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Aerocool Golden Crown Heat Sink

Provided by: ioCombo
Retail: $21.99
Review Date: November 24th, 2003
Written By: Daniel W.

Today, I will be looking at the Golden Crown by Aerocool. Someone famous once said, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” I say, “If the cover is not pleasing, you wouldn’t want to read the book.” Of course, this article is not a philosophical debate, it is a heatsink review. As you read on, you will see why I mentioned those quotes.

Aerocool Golden Crown Heat Sink
Click on image for larger picture

Packaging:

The packaging that the Golden Crown comes in is very generic and not vacuum sealed in a blister pack. Based on the presentation, I seriously doubted the quality of this product. The front and back of the packaging had colors and ripple patterns similar to the ones you get when you drop something into a pond. The name of the cooler was nowhere to be found on the front. The only things on the front were the company logo, printed on the top left corner, and two sentences along the ripples, “For AMD Athlon, Athlon XP, and Athlon MP CPU” and “High end CPU processor Cooler.”

Aerocool Golden Crown Heat Sink
Click on image for larger picture

The back of the packaging sported the same company logo in the same location. It had more information than the front. The specification of the featured cooler, Golden Crown, and another cooler, Phantom, is listed on the back. This led me to believe that Aerocool uses the same packaging for both these coolers. A way to cut costs is my guess. Towards the bottom, there is something that looked like the rating of a video game. This cooler has a rating of X, “For Xtremely Cool People” and “Suitable For Xtreme Case Modding Solutions.”

Contents:

There were only two things inside the package, the Golden Crown itself and a little syringe-type bottle of heatsink compound, Stars-700.

Specifications:

Manufacturer rated specs for the Golden Crown direct from the Aerocool's web site, www.aerocool.com.tw, are listed below.

Heatsink compound:

  • 25% Silver
  • Thermal Conductivity > 7.5W/m-k
  • Thermal Resistance > 0.06 C-in²/W

Heatsink:

  • Cooler Dimension – 62x80x42mm
  • Fan Size – 80x80x25mm
  • Fan Bearing – Ball Bearing
  • Fan Speed – 2400RPM
  • Air Flow – 38.41CFM
  • Noise Level – 26db
  • Weight – 300g

Description:

With a name like Golden Crown, you would think this heatsink is gold plated or at least copper. But no, the heatsink is all aluminum. The “Golden” refers to the fan support. The heatsink is tapered from 60mm up to 80mm to accommodate the fan.

The base of the heatsink, when it first came out of the package, was a nightmare. There were fingerprints and dust all over it. The lack of a protective cover made me doubt the quality even more.

Aerocool Golden Crown Heat Sink
Click on image for larger picture

At this point, thoughts of not trying this heatsink crossed my mind, but I pressed on anyway. Wiping the base clean with a soft cloth revealed a pretty decent lap job. It was not as good as a Zalman FHS, but was good nonetheless.

Aerocool Golden Crown Heat Sink
Click on image for larger picture

The fan mounted atop the heatsink is a four color, LED, 80mm fan, basically a standard LED fan. The heatsink and fan together are fairly lightweight.

Next (Installation, Results, & Conclusion)