Stock coolers that come with CPU’s, most people that want to push their systems don’t even install them. When they bought their setups they also made sure they got an after market CPU cooler as well. I was moving some stuff around in my attic trying to find something and came across the box for my AMD Athlon X2 4200+ CPU, I had forgotten that the original CPU cooler was in there. I opened up the box and was looking closer at the stock CPU cooler, it is a big boy. I never installed it, when I bought my system I also purchased a Zalman CPU cooler to use, because I knew I was going to be pushing my system. Anyway, I decided to see just what the stock cooler could do. Even though this isn’t exactly a review, I am going to do it in our standard review format.

As I mentioned the stock cooler is quite large, it actually looks like something you might get as an after market product. It comes pre-applied with some thermal gunk that I will remove before using, substituting Arctic Silver Ceramique.

The base of the cooler is actually fairly well machined, not quite a mirror finish but better than some I have seen.

As you can see from the pictures the fins are very close together, and there are some rather large heat pipes connected to a nice thick copper heat plate.

The cooler connects to the standard socket connection, to be connected to the bracket that comes standard on socket 939 motherboards.

The fan is a thin, 9 bladed style fan for more air flow.

For how big this cooler is, it is surprisingly lightweight. It is solidly made and can easily compare to other aftermarket coolers I have seen. Now let’s move on to the testing section and see just what it can do.

Testing and Installation:

Installation is easy, you need to apply your thermal compound, line up the cooler’s clamps to the socket’s bracket, lock in place. The cooler locks in place with a lever lock similar to the ones used to lock the CPU in place actually. In the picture you can see the lock in place, it is the black lever on the cooler.

Testing, my motherboard is a DFI Lanparty NF4 SLI-DR, I have 2 gigs of Corsair XMS-Pro 3500LL in there, and the CPU’s speed is set to match the 3500 rating of the ram or 219 MHz. This means that my CPU is slightly overclocked from stock to 2407, stock is 2200 MHz.

During my testing I used an external temperature sensor to get the ambient temp of my case, which was 26.2c.

According to Motherboard Monitor and the sensor reading reported in Everest my CPU’s idle temp was between 28c and 29c

And I have to say that the AMD Stock Cooler is very quiet, I hooked it straight to a molex so it was running at full speed which is about 3245 RPM’s.

For putting a load on my X2 I ran 2 instances or Prime 95 torture test In-Place Large FFTS, 1 on each core and Super Pi Mod1.4 at 32M for 30 minutes. The temperature of my CPU leveled out between 40c and 41c, and stayed there.

Not bad really, I recently reviewed the Thermaltake Big Water SE and under load my temps were between 34c and 36c. Using a custom cooling kit and a water/antifreeze mixture my temps were between 38c and 40c.

Conclusion:

The AMD Stock Cooling solution surprised me very much in what it could do, and how well it did it. So if you are buying an Athlon X2, don’t go rushing out to buy an aftermarket cooler thinking that the stock cooler won’t be adequate, it is really. You may want to buy some Arctic Silver though to replace the thermal stuff that is pre-applied.

Thinkcomputers can give the AMD Stock Cooler a 10 out of 10 score.

PROS:

-Well made

-Looks good

-Performs beyond expectations

-Quiet fan

CONS:

-Base could be smoother

-Pre-Applied thermal gunk