Cooler Master DF5-5F11
With the continuing popularity of the original Celeron, the recent release of the Celeron II and the new Pentium III Coppermine chips, the socket 370 chip is still very prominent in home and office computers. The DF5-5F11 by Cooler Master is designed for socket 370 chips, specifically those installed using an FC-PGA adapter (which allows socket 370 chips to be used on a slot 1 board). The DF5 series is predominantly used for Pentium III chips between 500 and 750Mhz, but for our tests we mounted it onto a PII Celeron 500.Here are the stats for the DF56-5F11 model:
Dimensions (Heatsink): L50 x W52.7 x H27 (mm)
Dimensions (Fan): 50 x 50 x 10 (mm)
Rated Voltage: 12V DC
Rated Speed (Fan): 4500 RPM
Air Flow: 9.21 CFM
Noise Level: 32 dB(A)
The complete heatsink/fan combo is marginally deeper than normal products: the heatsink provides just under a centimetre of extra depth, and the fan pumps out 9.21 Cubic Feet a minute, which isn't bad going compared to the usual 8CFM of standard 370 fans. Noise level is minimal thanks to the ball bearings, which excel when compared to cheaper bearing-less fans.
The installation guide (should you need it) is available from the Cooler Master website (www.coolermaster.com) and is a 3-stage affair: get plate hook ok CPU, hook first clip on, hook second clip on. Installation of these CPU heatsink/fan combos is always easy enough, and installing the DF5-5F11 took about 3 minutes, which included the removal of the old heatsink/fan. The clip arm is marginally shorter than other fans I have used, and it was a fairly tight fit, but once it was secured it wouldn't budge.
Designed for PIII chips up to 750Mhz, the DF5-5F11 has no problems at all with managing a Celeron 500. The 9.21-CFM airflow was enough to keep the Celeron chip at a temperature of 80F and below, even during heavy benchmarking tasks. Continuity is often a downfall of these fans: temperatures often start to rise after long periods of use, but temperatures on the Celeron 500 stayed low over a 48 hour period (that's from when I installed it to now, when I'm writing this review).
