Swiftech MC-462

Manufacturer: Swiftech
Supplied by: Sidewinder Computers
Price: $79.95

by Dean Barker  (6/11/2001)

Introduction:

Several names in high end computer parts demand respect by the mere mention of their name in their respective contexts.  Mention NVidia or Geforce and you automatically think of the pinnacle of graphics accelerators.  Mention Thunderbird or AXIA and you think of high performance CPUs with undiscovered potential.  Mention Swiftech and you think of the Mack Daddy of Coolers, the Big Kahuna itself.  Then you notice your mouth watering, face getting warm as you lustfully think how cool it would be to have on of "them bad boys!"  Well here in the Penthouse Labs we have heard all the talk.  And my friends, talk is cheap.  Can this sink be all we have heard it is?  There are not too many reviews out on this thing.  At $80 a hit I think I know why.  The damned thing costs as much as an 800-900MHz CPU (and I don't mean a 600MHz that has the jack on it either.)  Today we hope to see what this baddie can do.  Before we do, we want to thank the big man, Gary, over at Sidewinder Computers for sending us the care package.

When we first unpacked the box it was instantly obvious that this sink had some heft to it.  All 760 grams or just shy of 1 and 3/4 POUNDS!  Now this certainly isn't your momma's heatsink.

Let's have a closer look at the heatsink itself.  You see those four holes in the heatsinks base?  Major mounting is needed with this pup.  No stinking clip is gonna do the job here.

See those pins.  There are a total of 269 of them.  The pins as opposed to rods, help provide more surface area available for convection.  And no I didn't count them.  The pins attach into a fat copper base that should be whisking heat right off our chip lickety split.

The construction here is definitely high end.  I would hope so for 80 clams.  But really the pieces are machined to near perfection with everything fitting snug giving it a very solid feel.  The construction quality was something we commented on when we looked at the Swiftech MC-370.  With the MC-462, Swiftech has gone an additional step.  We did a short piece of RPM wires a while back.  What these do is they split the functions of the power wire to essentials.  The yellow wire below plugs into your mainboard header while the 4 pin Molex plugs into your power supply.  This is VERY important boys and girls.  Talk about Black Label Deltas burning up mainboard headers?  Do you even have to ask about this fan given it's shear size.  The yellow wire connecting functions to give you RPM data via an onboard Hardware Doctor or a similar program such as Mainboard Monitor.  Talking about the power wires; check out the nylon covering on that Molex connector wire below.  That has no function (the covering) but it goes to show you the lengths Swiftech went to in trying to catch every detail.    

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