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Date Posted: November 20, 2001
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shouldn't need any introduction for most overclockers. The MC462 series has long been regarded as one of the, if not "the", best active air coolers. The MC462 was always one of the most expensive, but money needed to be spent if you wanted the best. The cooler landscape has changed a lot since then, and a lot of heatsink solutions were making serious claims on Swiftech's mantle as performance king. With the introduction of the Alpha 8045, Swiftech has been decisively beaten in the vast majority of benchmarks. Granted, a degree or two may not be so bad, but the fact that the Alpha sold for quite a bit less, the differences become greater. It was time for Swiftech to make some changes to it's flagship heatsink.
The MCX462 is the latest from Swiftech, and although it appears similar to the original MC462, there are quite a few changes made to this model.
Specifications
Heat sink
CNC machined, C110 copper base, 3"W x 3"L x .375"H, flatness better than 0.001", micro surface finish 8 or better.
371 Pins made of High Thermal Conductivity aluminum alloy (6063)
Overall dimensions with fan 3"x3"x3.2", without fan 3"x3"x1.56"
Weight: 26 oz (730g) with fan, 20 oz (560g) without fan.
Mounting
Motherboard fittings: 6-32 Female to Male 1/4" aluminum round standoffs with nylon washers and nylons nuts
4 compression springs providing exact specified pressure per chip manufacturers.
For Intel Pentium 4 processors, 2 brackets bolt atop the block to match Intel's mounting specifications
Fan
80mm Delta SHE Fan ()
4900RPM
68.5CFM
48.5db[A] Noise Rating
Pictures say it all. The MCX462 is HUGE!
Like it's older brother, the MCX462 is a mammoth. With the Delta SHE 68.5cfm fan, it's noticably larger than the MC462, though the heatsinks are fairly similar in size. The copper base on the MCX appears to be slightly thicker, but not by too much.
Rather than fins, the MCX462 uses pins, 371 of them to be exact. The pins are made of a highly thermal conductive aluminum material that Swiftech attaches to the copper base. Unlike Alpha, which forges them, the pins here are soldered on. The fit is quite snug, and I don't think this will be detrimental in performance.
Taking a closer look at the pins, we can see the re-introduction of the helicoid pin design, originally introduced with the MCX370. The pins diameter themselves are slighlty smaller than the original design, 0.093" (2.38mm) as opposed to 0.125" (3.17mm), allowing Swiftech to pack in more pins. According to Swiftech, the combination of more pins, and the helicoid design increases surface area for heat dissipation, and the pins being thinner promote faster thermal transfer. The base has been redesigned to fit on all Socket-A motherboards that follow AMD's specifications. In fact, the heatsink itself should fit any socket motherboard, so long as you get the proper mounting equipment, and the motherboard has the mounting holes available. The heatsink is the same for all the models..., the MCX462, MCX423 and the MCX478.
Although not a mirror finish, Swiftech does an excellent job of smoothing out the base. Their specifications state a flatness of 0.001", which is pretty much flat to the human eye. If your name is Zoltran from Quadar, then maybe you might want to lap it some more. I didn't bother, and thermal paste does a good enough job of bonding the surfaces. Swiftech thankfully doesn't pre-apply a thermal pad, and they include some good thermal paste with the package. It has a nice consistency, and performs on par with Arctic Silver 2, give or take a degree or so.
To tell you the truth, I dreaded the installation of the MCX462 with the included Delta fan. It's close to double the size of most 80mm fans I've used before, and having been through several 60mm Deltas, I was quite nervous. There is a rheostat included, which can slow the fan down from 4900rpm to 3900rpm, knocking about 10dba off the total volume. Without the rheostat attached, I fired it up and yeah, it's loud. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be though. It's more of a whoosh sound, and not terribly high pitched. With the rheostat attatched, I brought the fan speed down, and it worked quite well, but the amount of noise lowered wasn't worth the loss in performance, in my opinion.
Rheostat
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