Intel Pentium 4 1.4GHz & 1.5GHz

Constructing Mt. Everest: The Pentium 4’s Heatsink

We just finished mentioning that the Pentium 4 produces less heat than a lower clocked Athlon, but Intel refrained from sticking with the conventional cooling methods they employed for all Socket-370 processors and what AMD is using for their Socket-A CPUs.  Instead Intel is debuting a new heatsink retention mechanism that will help to avoid the dreaded crushed core syndrome that some Athlon/Duron owners have seen in recent times. 

Let’s take a look at what it takes to assemble the Pentium 4’s heatsink:

First the Heatsink Retention Mechanism is screwed into the motherboard and into the case as seen below. If you've ever installed a Xeon, it's much similar to that retention mechanism, except you're dealing with a socketed CPU not one on a processor card.

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Getting both retention bases installed isn't a problem:

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Now let's have a look at the heatsink itself:

Of course retail heatsinks won't look exactly like this but they will be similar in size.

The next step is to place the heatsink on the platform after applying a decent amount of thermal compound. There is no need to put any pressure on the heatsink at this stage.

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