Analysis/Installation

Cooler design

Gigabyte has certainly implemented a unique design for the 3D Cooler. As we stated earlier, rather than rely on a traditional heatsink implementation, Gigabyte has integrated heat pipe cooling into the 3D Cooler series. If you recall, a heat pipe design relies on phase-change cooling. The heat pipes themselves are filled with a liquid which begins to boil once the processor heats up. Once the liquid boils, the vapor is forced to the other end of the heat pipe, where it is cooled. From there the vapor condenses back into liquid form and returns to the other end of the pipe. This cycle constantly repeats itself, keeping the CPU cool.

To pull this off, Gigabyte has integrated four heat pipes, one at each corner of the 3D Cooler. In order to increase the heat pipe’s surface area and thus its effectiveness, a tall Orb-like design has been implemented. The heat pipes are then flanked by aluminum fins while dual, blower-style fans are at the center of the Gigabyte 3D Cooler.

See the heat pipes in there?

Inlet fan at the top of the cooler

Bottom intake fan

Interestingly enough, both fans blow inward: with the bottom blower sitting approximately one inch above the CPU interface when mounted, air flows above the heat pipe’s/copper base and then up through the apparatus. Meanwhile, the top blower also acts as an air intake. Both streams of air converge at the center, where they exhaust (for lack of a better word) as a massive, tall column of air out the sides.

Copper slug

Since the cooler has fins on all sides of it, this cool air stream exhausts on all sides of the Gigabyte 3D Cooler, hence the “3D” in its name. It’s essentially a true 360 degree cooler, providing cool air for nearby components such as system RAM and your video card, while at the same time the 3D Cooler keeps your processor cool.

The speed of the dual fans can be adjusted via a 3.5” front panel, which is included in the packaging. Speeds range from 2,000 RPM to 4,000 RPM. Obviously the higher the RPMs, the more effective the cooler is, but you also must deal with a higher noise level. In fact, the 4,000 RPM setting was so powerful I could actually feel a slight breeze while sitting four feet away from the test bed!

Fan control panel

A few of the accessories

Installation

Installation is fairly straightforward and should be simple for those of you who are experienced system builders. Gigabyte includes clips for Athlon XP, Pentium 4, and Athlon 64/Opteron systems. Simply place the appropriate clip on the cooler, mount the unit over the processor properly, align the notches on the socket interface of your motherboard, and use the clip to latch the cooler to the processor. Installation and removal for all three processor platforms requires no tools.

Once the cooler is attached and mounted to your motherboard, plug the 3D Cooler up to your system’s power supply and then use the fan header to connect to your motherboard (all power cables are provided in the packaging). Finally, connect the 3.5” fan control header to either your 3.5” drive bay or if the 1.7 feet of cable Gigabyte provides isn’t enough for the interior of your case, you can mount the 3.5” fan control front panel to one of the PCI slots on the back of your computer (the bracket and screws are all included in the packaging).