Intel Pentium 4 2.2A (Northwood)

Author : Wayne Date : 4th March 2002

...Product	Pentium4 2.2A
...Manufacturer	Intel
...Supplier	Intel
...Price	£557.00 approx @ Scan

 

 

 

Installation and cooling :

There's almost no need to cover this aspect of the job. Installation is the same as with all other socketed processors, lift the lever on the ZIF socket, slot in the processor and close the lever again. I'm sure the veterans are feeling insulted that I even bothered to say that but I know we have readers who may have limited knowledge when it comes to these things and would like to know that there's no major mechanical trickery involved.

Along with a new packaging comes a new cooling arrangement and although users of socket 478 boards will already be familiar with the changes, those still running socket 423 boards may not be.
The stock Intel cooler is actually pretty impressive, it's also incredibly big! Okay so there's no copper insert or hovercraft ready fan on it, but its pure size makes it more than adequate for normal use and for some reasonably high overclocking to boot.

The particular unit I used was taken from our Intel D845WN board, unfortunately this particular i845 board is the SDR version so I had to swap the cooling to the only DDR P4 board I had available at the time of testing, a Shuttle AK40R. This board uses VIA's P4X266chipset and although that might not sit too well with Intel it was unfortunately the only option I had.

As you can hopefully see above the stock boxed cooler we received with our Williamette 1.7 differs in design from the other units in that it uses two spring loaded clips, one at either end of the sink. These locate with lugs on the cradle and apply a downward pressure whereas the more familiar design uses levers to clamp the sink down. Both methods work quickly and easily and thanks to the heat spreader design you'd have to do something pretty stupid to do any damage to your valuable new processor.

That's pretty much the basics covered, I figure it's probably time to take a look at what this means in terms of raw performance, let's get to it.

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