Best Of Socket A Coolers
As soon as I saw this cooler the only thing that came to mind was WOW!!! Built of pure copper this baby weighed way more than any cooler I had ever come across. Featuring a 60×60 Delta fan running at 6800RPM, the CAK38 is truly a monster. In the past GlobalWin have produced some kick ass coolers, and their newly released CAK38 certainly heads the list now. Weighing in at a thundering 450g’s the CAK38 measures in at 2.75″ tall.
The 60mm Delta fan comes with a chrome fan guard and produces 38CFM, which is more than sufficient to keep the CPU cool under extreme overclocking conditions. The double ball bearing delta fan produces around 42dBa of sound, which is quite tolerable. The fan is placed on 4 metal risers and it rests around 6 inches above the heatsink. The CAK38 Coolerguys sent us included a tad of thermal grease attached to the cooler. As we stated before if you could afford to cash in another $9, go for Arctic Silver II.
Some of you might wonder what’s so great about the CAK38. If you look around you’ll find many coolers out there with copper base plates. Eg: Swiftech MC462-A Well the fact is non of these coolers offered are built from one solid block of copper, like the CAK38. This is what makes this cooler so special.
Installation
Installation wasn’t much trouble really, however the use of a spring clip requires you to use a screwdriver to get the clips in place. Sometimes the spring clip might be bent too far apart. As a result when installing the cooler there will be a great degree of force on the CPU. You could bend the clip a little bit by way of a screw driver manually before you actually attach it to the CPU. Or better yet, get yourself a non-conductive shim (Cool Shim). Getting a shim is the best bet since the cooler is also quite heavy thus creating much pressure on the CPU. Now we don’t need another cracked processor now do we.
Testing
For testing purposes we are using a DFI AK75-EC mainboard and a Duron 700 overclocked to 1000MHz. For optimal heat dissipation we used Arctic Silver II as our thermal compound. Temperature readings are taken from a CompuNurse thermal probe + mainboard hardware monitor. In order to stress the CPU we used 3D Mark 2001 at 640 x 480, in order to keep the Graphics card usage at a minimum. We ran the test for 30 minutes each before getting a temperature reading.
Conclusion
Well folks the results certainly are very impressive indeed. After all this is an AMD processor and keeping it under 45°C at 1000MHz is no easy task at all. GlobalWin most definitely have a winner here. It sure beats their previous coolers by far. Being made of solid copper the CAK38 certainly does perform. Provided you use a Peltier based cooling system, the CAK38 will do wonders. Before installing the cooler however make sure you bend the retainer clip to a certain degree, so that it won’t need much pressure to be installed. Sometimes a Shim can also give way if the pressure is above a normal degree.
All in all the CAK38 is a good performer. It may not be as good as OCZ’s Gladiator and Swiftech’s MC 462-A, however the 100% copper material certainly makes this very attractive. Some of you might consider the 60mm Delta fan to be quite loud, however remember performance always comes with certain compromises. If you’re not willing to compromise well it’s too bad, since the CAK38 is a force to recon with. At a price of $39.95, the CAK38 does not come cheap, but it sure is worth every penny.
