omg! you guys are right, it does look like some kind of tractor pulling saw tilling machine! :happy3:


@ Neuromancer

I am very interested in this bolt mod you speak of, how would applying more pressure on the chip increase the performance of the cooler?

Generally, applying more pressure squeezes the TIM into the micro-cracks and crevaces of the h/s and IHS, providing a more even contact area. It also brings the heatsource much closer to the heat removal device "H/S". The Thermal Interface Material is just that, an interface, and doesn't do well with alot of TIM between the IHS and H/S so squeezing it thin with a tight mount does great things.

Cautionary statement is that you must have a solid backplate if you're gonna be wrenching down the h/s because you don't want the mobo to bend and crack traceroutes in the pcb. Another word of caution is that the pin's in the cpu socket can bend slightly if you have a mega tight mount, this will force you to always use a super tight mount or the processor won't contact the socket pins correctly during your next re-mount. I'm talking loads of torque here, not your vanilla boy's tight mount.

Also, make sure you are torquing down your mount equally, don't torque down on bolt at a time, use the old care rim bolt down theory and bolt down across rather than clockwise or other.

What he said :)
Made a good 5C difference with my tuniq tower :)

A bolt through mod could be a s simple as removing the plastic socket (but leaving the AMD backplate, I attached my backplate with seiksui thermal tape, so its stuck to the back of the mobo pretty good). Using the screws from the plastic socket to attach an hplate. I ended up modding a 1U server heatsink into an Hplate, in retrospect, it would have been cheaper to just buy a bolt through kit since I burned up my B&D RTX doing it.

Great! Thank you to you both for the help.

One con about this cooler is it doesn't clamp down very hard, it kinda concerned me because even though my Zalman 9500a has a clip it still clamps to the backet with a lot a pressure. My main rig is running a CM V8 and that cooler is a bolt in. :)

I will do some more research on this bolt mod and give it a try, thanks!

Looks good dude :toast:

Keep us posted if you give the bolt thru mod a go!