Low Profile Socket-A/Socket-370 Cooler Roundup - December 2001

Spire 5R52B3

The first thing we noticed about Spire's 1U cooler is that it looks very similar to the Thermaltake unit also present in this roundup.

Installation

Installation is a bit tricky; a screwdriver is required. A thermal pad is included; for our tests we removed the pad and used thermal compound instead. The Spire cooler has the same problem as the Thermatake unit: The fan cannot be reversed, unless other screws and additional washers are being used.

The Spire and Thermaltake coolers side by side: Similar, but not identical.

Performance and noise, conclusion

Despite the similarity, the Spire cooler doesn't perform as well as the Thermaltake cooler. Possible reasons for this include the surface finish (which is better on the Thermaltake unit), the clip or the fan. As usual, the Spire cooler performs better in 1U conditions when the fan is reversed, which is not possible with the screws the cooler comes with.

The advantages: The 5R52B3isn't very loud, and while we don't recommend it for AMD CPUs with high power dissipation, it should be suitable for all Socket 370 CPUs. Being made entirely of aluminum, it isn't too expensive either.