Thermaltake Golden Orb II Cooler

Installation

For AMD applications, an included base plate is substituted for the stock plate on most mainboards.  One side of the board is covered with an insulating rubber adhesive.  This may be overkill in my mind to keep the plate in place as two screws from the cooler are screwed directly into it via some oversized mainboard standoffs.  What I really didn't like was the stick-em here.  While mounting is by no means permanent, adding in heat from normal operation and removal of the base plate is no longer a quick easy exercise. 

For LGA775 boards, two arms are used to take advantage of the existing mounting holes in these types of boards.  The arms are secured from the underside of the board with small screws.  Motherboard removal to install a cooler is almost expected these days but it remains far from pleasant all the same.  All other aspects of installation on AMD or Intel boards was without incident.

Operation

Here we have a collection of shots of the Golden Orb II mounted on several Intel and AMD platforms.  The purpose here was to see if we could find any compatibility issues with the Orb's overhang or a possible lack there of.  I'm glad to say that we did not.  What I also liked seeing was that the angle of the fins coming off the socket area was steep enough so that the overhang of the fins cleared and provided some level of direct cooling to other components around the socket.  Look at the second pic below.  The overhang on this K8 SLI board allows air to be blown across the memory.  Yes, the air will warm coming off the cooler but it will not be as warm as the surface temperature of the DIMMs.  Air movement is just as important as its temperature.  Hot stagnant air is a bad thing.  The Tt Golden Orb II either by design or circumstance, keeps stagnant air around board components to a minimum.

The three blue LEDs illuminating the Golden Orb do nothing for performance but they add quite a bit to its "hip-ness factor."

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