Thermally speaking the D850GB comes equipped with some very interesting fan controls. I can just imagine the Intel motherboard designers huddling over the drawing board, cappuccinos in hand, having a heated discussion about how many fan headers to include... Perhaps one of the younger engineers with an eye towards cost cutting was arguing for only three fan headers. Another engineer, who if you think along the lines of the godfather for a moment, leans back in their chair and says in their most mob-boss like tone; "No! I giva youa four fan headers!"

What ever the story really was, the fact remains that the D850GB comes with four fan headers, two of which are thermally controlled by the BIOS. The two thermally controlled fan headers (Fan1, Fan2) can adjust fan speed depending on the input received by the system boards thermal sensors. If RPM sensor enabled fans (the third wire on the fan lead) are used the tachometer signal will be sent to the ADM1031 controller which will scale back, or increase the speed of the fans to compensate for the thermal condition.

Heatsinks and cooling

Naturally the heatsink is the center point of our attention - thermally speaking - since it keeps our processors operating in their finest form and prevents unstable operation because of overheating.

The heatsink retention mechanism that must be used with just about every Pentium 4 cooling solution will work in one of two ways - depending on how nice your motherboard manufacturer is. The official way the HRM should be installed on any motherboard s by directly bolting it to the motherboard tray. Since many us are using perfectly good cases which don't support chassis mounting heatsinks most HRM's will just attached to the system board itself.

Socket 423 with holes in the surrounding PCB for the P4 heatsink retention mechanism. The plastic supports are simply dropped into place and then locked solidly by depressing the white spacer pins.

The trade off is one of stability I guess, but unless you happen to be using a 500 gram (pulled out of thin air) or heavier heatsink I wouldn't worry too much about giant holes being ripped from the PCB. Of course, if you are using a really heavy heatsink on the processor, it goes without saying that it should be removed before transporting the computer any significant distances, or shipping via FedEx/UPS.

Anyhow, a Pentium 4 heatsink can sometimes be used on more than just a Pentium 4 processor - it all depends on the heatsink manufacturer, and how many 'birds' they are trying to kill with that one cooler. Generally speaking, the heatsink must have tabs for the heatsink retention mechanism (HRM) to clip into if it is meant for P4's, and may also have a socket clip enabling you to use it on another computer should you want to.