Spire 5F271B1L3 FalconRock II

Spire Cooler have been around for a bit now making coolers for most applications. They are not really known by their extreme performance in the overclocking area, but more known for their decent cooling abilities at default and mild overclocking. I'll be taking a look at a upgraded cooler here. Heatsink wise this is the same cooler as the Whisper Rock II so I will not try to bore you with all of the specific details of this heatsink. I will however point out the minor changes made to it to make it more effective!

There are a couple changes to this heatsink versus the Whisper Rock II. The bottom of the heatsink now includes a copper core to help pull the heat away from the processor faster than aluminum does. A plus I might add. Seems that the aluminum/copper heatsinks are pretty affectice means of cooling these days so it is nice to see this bit added to it! The bottom of it is also lapped so it is shiny and practically a mirror finish. I tried to get a really good pic of the mirror shine on the bottom, but no matter what angle, with or without flash I was unable to show this.

Another key upgrade to the heatsink is the clip! Spire has added a 3 prong clip to keep us cooling nuts happy. I think by now the majority of us PC Abusers have busted off a socket lug or 2 or 4 in my case so when I see a 3 prong clip it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy! In order to make this big clip work a section of the heatsink had to be machined out so when you extend the rear clip down to get it hooked over the lugs, the front clip has somewhere to go. Now after having reviewed a Volcano 9 that was a royal pain to install, I sure hope that Thermaltake will take note of this and remember it in their next cooler design.