In 3Dvelocity's second of two heatsink reviews from Aerocool, I will be looking at the Golden Crown. This cooler is a member of the “Silence Solutions” category of coolers just like the Extreme but differs from it in many ways. This is a pure aluminum-based cooler unlike the copper Extreme and aimed at less temperature-conscious users.

It uses a fin design that places it in the “Skive Fin Series” of coolers. The design is touted heavily on the box and is claimed to outperform the traditional extrusion coolers by over 30%. The advantage of Skive fins is that they are cut from the same block of metal as the base. This makes for an unbroken pathway for the heat to pass up into the fins. The Golden Crown features 33 fins on either side of the cooler and a total of 66 altogether.

My first reaction when seeing the fan specs was a great deal of surprise. A cfm rating of 38.41 while only giving off 26dBA of noise is quite impressive. This comes close to the noise levels of some 92mm fans at the same dBA. The higher performance fan provides an equally impressive ratio with 51.5 cfm at only 34 dBA.

Wide compatibility is something that I've always enjoyed about Socket 462 coolers. If I ever become tired of the rapid pace of technology, I can with little trouble take my socket 462 cooler and “overcool” my trusty Pentium MMX. This cooler is rated up to an Athlon XP 2600+ and will probably manage higher than this with the more powerful fan.

One of the greatest advantages of aluminum-based coolers if the reduction in weight that comes with it. This makes the single-lug design an intelligent design choice even though I personally prefer a 3 lug clip for stability. Some of the higher end coolers are almost heavy enough to tear the socket right off the motherboard. The trade-off of course is that aluminum has weaker heat dissipation.

The Golden Crown comes packaged in your typical cardboard box used for most coolers.

The box contains just the cooler itself fitting snugly inside. I may be nit-picking but I do believe that every cooler should come with at least basic instructions. It's just a simple sheet of paper and not everyone knows how to install them!

The word that can best describe this cooler would be “elegant”. The gold and silver make it look like something that you would buy your wife for a special occasion.

The clear fan continues this elegant look and really accentuates the minimalist style. In a possible slight oversight, the fan motor is not covered up and you can see the metal coils which breaks the colour scheme. Obviously this is very minimal but covering it up with a golden plate would make this an essentially perfect heatsink based purely on first impressions.

Unfortunately my sample came shipped to me with the bottom surface in quite poor condition. There were visible scratches and looked unprofessional in comparison to how well most coolers are lapped. The retail versions may be different but you have been warned.

To simplify installation for less experienced users, Aerocool ships the cooler with a thermal pad stuck on the bottom. For everyone else this is a great annoyance and any thermal transfer would be hindered by it. I quickly scraped it off with my fingernail and cleaned the remains with Acetone.

As mentioned earlier, this cooler uses only a single lug on each side of the CPU socket to attach itself. This, being an aluminum cooler, is possible but I still much prefer the extra safety provided by all three lugs.

Installation