The first heatsink installed on almost every Intel Pentium 4/D/EE processor is the boxed reference heatsink included with the CPU. Most often, these stock heatsinks provide a lifetime of use, diligently cooling the CPU with a moderate amount of noise while keeping temperatures within safe margins. Yet when applications call for enhanced cooling capacity, or quieter operation, the stock heatsink is often the first to go - replaced by more exotic thermal solutions from after market heatsink manufacturers.

For some reason, most of us just assume that "stock" or "reference" heatsinks are equivalent to "basic" or "bottom-line" thermal performance. Yet while some 3rd party Intel LGA775 heatsinks are much better, many others are in fact much worse.

Intel's own Radial Curved non-Bifurcated Fin Heatsink (RCBFH) reference solution is a fairly well designed cooler; it uses a 4-pin PWM 84mm diameter Nidec F09A-12B4S1 fan that scales in speed to meet thermal demands, it conforms to ATX motherboard keep-out and high recommendations, it relies on an efficient and light weight mix of copper over the integrated heatspreader and high aspect ratio extruded radially curved aluminum fins, and it installs or removes from a motherboard in a snap without the use of tools.

Intel Stock Pentium D Heatsink
	HEATSINK SPECSHEET Manufacturer: Intel Model No.: Stock Pentium D Materials: Extruded aluminum, copper insert. Fan Mfg: Nidec F09A-12B4S1 Fan Spec: 800-2600RPM (est.), 12V, 0.42A Fan Dim: 25x84x84mm Heatsink & Fan Dim: 72x88x88mm Weight: est. 460 grams Includes: pre-applied thermal compound. Compatible with Sockets: LGA775 Est. Pricing: $25USD ($30CDN)

FrostyTech's heatsink test methodology is outlined in detail here if you care to know what equipment is used, and the parameters under which the tests are conducted. Now let's move forward and take a closer look at this heatsink, its acoustic characteristics, and of course it performance in the thermal tests!