Manufactor: Alpha Company Ltd.
Price Alpha PEP66T heatsink: $39.95

Thanks to Coolerguys for supplying us with this great Alpha cooler!

Introduction

We all know that Tim made a review of his Alpha PAL6035 cooler last week, which was kindly supplied by the peeps @ Coolerguys. These guys also supplied Overclockers Online with another Alpha heatsink, this time it's the Alpha PEP66T. Because we know from the past that Alpha heatsinks can go where no other heatsink has ever went before, we couldn't resist putting it on our testbed. By the way; I was just looking for a high performance CPU cooler that would let me overclock my P3-700E to, and perhaps beyond, the 1Ghz barrier.

Is the Alpha PEP66T the cooler I was looking for? Let's find out...

Specifications

• New Clip and flat bottom for use on the FC-PGA and Socket A processors.
• Alpha heatsink
• Copper Embedded
• Model# PEP66T
• Dual-ball Bearing fan
• Includes fan finger guard (fan grill)
• Includes 1.g G47 thermal compound

My First Impressions

Just like the PAL6035, the newest PEP66T has been redesigned to fith both Socket A en Socket 370 (FC-PGA) CPUs. This PEP66T has a new flat, copper embedded bottom and a new mounting clip design. Yep, it has a flat bottom without those small plastic feet (PADS) which were great for Intel CPU owners, but a real nightmare for those lucky bastards who own an AMD CPU. Hey...now the bottom is flat... and what about the Intel CPU owners?? Well, those clever ingeneers from Alpha have included some rubber feet (PADS) in the box, so you can easily put them on the bottom of the heatsink (the spots are marked) whenever you need them. Smart move, huh! If you want to use the heatsink on an AMD CPU later on, the feet can be removed from the bottom by just rubbing over with your finger. Is this easy or what?!

The main difference between the PAL6035 and this PEP66T is the side-mounted fan which allows this Alpha to be also installed on the Slocket Adapters that the original PEP uses.





As you can see on the pictures, the PEP66T is actually an aluminium FIN heatsink with a copper bottom and a fan attached on the side. Do you want to know something about the fan I'm using? Well, there isn't much to say about it actually. The PEP66T package we received, contained a 60mm Y.S. Tech fan which delivers an avarage airflow of about 26cfm. But you can also order this PEP66T with a 60 mm Sunon fan which has a lower noise rate and only a slightly lower airflow of 23cfm. I believe everyone is smart enough to choose which type of fan he'll want to use. :)



You can already pick up the PEP66T heatsink at Coolerguys for 'just' $33.95. Don't let there be any mistakes here; for $33.95 you get the PEP66t heatsink without a cooler of your choice or fan finger guard. That's why I should advise you to go for the $39.95 full PEP66T package which has a Y.S. Tech or Sunon fan and the fan grill included. That's only $6 more than just the $33.95 heatsink. But again... it's your choice.

These are pictures of the bottom of the heatsink WITHOUT the PADS!


And this is a pic of the bottom AFTER the PADS had been put on.

Installation

First of all, this cooler has to be assembled before you can put it onto your CPU. Don't worry, this is a very easy process and, with the nice manual by your side, this should be finished in less than 5 minutes. First, you have to put the mounting clip into the heatsink. Then you have to assemble the intake cover and the fan and screw them both down by using the right bolts. Then, last but certainly not least, you have to put the feet (PADS) onto the bottom of the heatsink and you're done.
NOTE : the feet should only be used in case you have an Intel FC-PGA CPU!

Now, the only thing that's left for you to do is putting some thermal grease onto the CPU's core so you can fit the cooler onto the CPU.
NOTE : Be extremely careful not to crush the CPU's core!

Testing

System setup

- AOpen HQ45 case
- Asus CUV4X motherboard
- Intel P3-700E @ 945Mhz (7x135Mhz)
- 128MB pc133 RAM (cas 3-3-3-5)
- WD 20Gb 7200RPM UDMA66
- Creative Geforce DDR
- Win2k (SP1)
- Directx 8 final + Detonator 6.47 + VIA 4.25a

Don't laugh at this poor s*cker :) hihi

The Results

I have to admit, this PEP66T is the first CPU cooler that took my P3-700E beyond the 1Ghz barrier (1022Mhz to be exact!!) without any lockups or other errors whatsoever. I was really amazed by the results that can be achieved with this HSF. Next, let's have a look at some numbers, shall we? Ooh, right... I need to tell you what we mean by 'full load' :) Well, that's about 2 hours of Prime95 together with RC5. Duh, what did you expect? Did you expect that we were going to test this HSF by just playing a game of Minesweeper? I don't think so :)
As I already told you above, I was able to overclock my P3-700E to a rockstable 1022Mhz (1.95v) by just using aircooling. 1022Mhz!! Man, just say that out loud and enjoy how it sounds! :) That's quite an achievement, don't you think? With the room temperature hovering around 20°C, the CPU didn't get any warmer than 42°C at full load. But because I'm comparing results of the Alpha PEP66T heatsink with the results I got when using the stock Intel heatsink, I had to lower the CPU speed from 1022Mhz to 945Mhz for the one and only reason that 945Mhz is the highest setting I could get with the stock cooler :(

First, I'll give you the idle temperatures; with the stock Intel cooler, the CPU temperature was 34°C and with the PEP66T it went no higher than 31°C. After the CPU got its full load the PEP66T managed to keep the CPU temperature down to a cool 37°C, while the temperature went up to a very warm 48°C with the stock cooler. That's a decrease by more than 10°C! Not bad at all, if you ask me.

Good

- Great performance
- Allows stable overclocking
- Nice design
- Alpha quality

Bad

- Rather expensive
- Doesn't fit all Socket A & Socket 370 mobos
- Mounting it onto the CPU can be difficult

Conclusion

Don't the results speak for themselves? I think so. I mean...wow, what a CPU cooler! At full load, the PEP66T dropped the CPU temperature by 11°C compared to the standard Intel HSF. There isn't much left for me to say other than: If you want to get yourself one of the best CPU coolers around and you got the necessary $$$, I'd strongly advise you to go for the Alpha PEP66T!