Verdict: The G-Power is perfect for Athlon 64 CPUs, as it offers great cooling and low noise, but Pentium 4e owners should look elsewhere
Gigabyte has made real progress with its heatsink designs and the new G-Power Cooler Pro is its best effort yet.
The G-Power is a universal heatsink, compatible with everything from the Athlon XP to the latest LGA775 Pentium. There's a 92mm fan, and although it kicks out quite a racket at full speed, it's lit by a sparkly blue LED and is speed-adjustable. On the Pro version of the G-Power, this is achieved by using a speed dial set into a neat 3.5in drive bay unit, which is far easier to use than a backplate-mounted dial.
The mounting mechanisms are good, though it's easier to fit on an Athlon 64 than an LGA775 CPU, as you can use the existing mounting bracket. Owners of LGA755 CPUs will have to fit a custom mounting bracket.
The G-Power has four copper heatpipes coated with nickel. The design works well; when loaded, our 2.8GHz overclocked Athlon 64 FX-55 was 24ûC cooler with the G-Power than it was with the reference cooler. This was with the fan at its top speed, however, and the noise is quite irritating. Reducing the fan speed doesn't take away its powers; at low speed, the G-Power cooled the chip to 19ûC below the reference cooler, which is 2ûC more than the Labs-winning Akasa AK913.
With our 3.96GHz Pentium 4e test CPU it was much less effective - only 4ûC colder than the reference HSF at maximum fan speed, and 2ûC cooler at minimum fan speed. This is because Pentium 4e CPUs kick out a lot more heat than Athlon 64s.
CONCLUSION
The G-Power is perfect for Athlon 64 CPUs, as it offers great cooling and low noise, but Pentium 4e owners should look elsewhere.
