Benchmarking

Processor

AMD Athlon XP 2800+
Motherboard

Leadtek K7NCR18-D Pro II

For testing, I used a stock AMD heatsink, as well as a Volcano 11 as comparison heatsinks. The tempuratures were taken using the thermal diode provided by Thermaltake with this kit and a the readouts came from the Hardcano on my Lanfire case. The TIM (Thermal Interface Material) was some Artic Silver 5.

Full load was achieved using SiSoft Sandra's Burn In Test. I let the Test run for about 50 cycles before taking the final tempurature reading. Normal usage tempuratures were taken when doing general work like word processing or chatting (nothing CPU intensive) for about half an hour.

The ambient tempurature of the room was roughly 28 degrees Celcius.

Results

Stock

Volcano 11

Polo735 Low

Polo735 High
Normal

42

38

39

37
Full Load

46

42

44

41

The Polo735 performed very well, beating out the Volcano 11 by a just a tiny margin though.

Conclusion

The Polo735 is an excellent heatsink. It performs extremely well and seems to be a versatile heatsink that provides great cooling and the added benefit of throttoling your fans when you don't need the extra cooling to keep the noise down. At the lowest settings I could barely discern a difference the case fans running on my computer and the 3 blade fan from the Polo735. However at full tilt, it gets really loud.

The Polo735 will fit most motherboards, but as we saw will definately not fit the VNF3-250 from Chaintech. If your K8 motherboard doesn't have a bottom mounting bracket that protrudes through the top of the motherboard, you're not going to be able to use this heatsink on your motherboard.

Pros:

  • Copper construction
  • 2 rheobus options
  • Fits most K7, P4, K8 motherboards
  • Good cooling performance

Cons:

  • Needs lapping
  • Doesn't fit the VNF3-250
  • Loud at full throttle

Final Score: 90