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The SECC1 cooler market has seen something of an upswing lately. The decision by AMD to use the SECC1 slot1 cartridge style, as used on the P2, for the Athlon instead of the SECC2 used by Intel's slot1 P3's is an interesting one but regardless of their reasons it has revitalized the SECC1 cooler market. In this 6-way comparison I have a few units from GlobalWin and Vantek, both well established in the Socket370 and SECC2 cooler market, and one from RDJD who arrived on the scene a couple of months or so ago. All of these units are of course suitable for cooling either Pentium II's or Athlons and are available from www.pccoolers.com.

GlobalWin VEK-32

This hefty unit looks like two of GlobalWin's CPM-series Socket370 heatsinks (see our Socket370 Cooler Comparo here) stuck side-by-side with a couple of Y.S.Tech 60mm double ball-bearing fans mounted on top. These fans are a favourite of GlobalWin's, having been used on their CPM25603-32, FEP-32 and FDP-32. Together these two move 52cfm of air which is impressive. Both fans use intelligent connectors so you can monitor them independently but if you can only spare 1 fan header there's a Y-connector included that lets them share one. This means you can only monitor one fan, of course. Due to the width of the fans the heatsink is perhaps a little on the short side. I'd like to make special mention of the pain-in-the-ass mounting clip used on this unit. Maybe I'm missing something but it was really difficult to get the tabs to fit into the slots on the P2's backplate, once you get them in it looks like it's mounted but will be prone to popping off unless you use a screwdriver to push each of the 4 tabs further into the slots, and to get the bugger off I had to unscrew and remove both fans. Argh!

GlobalWin FKK-50

Slightly less beefy-looking, this unit has thinner heatsink fins and smaller fans (Delta Electronics 50mm ball-bearing units). Both these fans are intelligent and the unit is supplied with a Y-connector for sharing a single fan header if required. GlobalWin's mounting placement of these fans seems a little odd to me. Stuck right on the edge of the heatsink as they are, you'd think that the inner edge of the fan would eject air straight out of the heatsink through the gap cut for the mounting clip, and the outer edge will eject straight out the end, hardly even touching the heatsink. I think that mounting the fans side-by-side in the centre of the sink would be more effective - certainly more of the blade area is over the sink itself and the air will have to travel the length of the sink to escape. A little experimentation in order here, I think. It uses the same exercise-in-frustration mounting system as the VEK-32 but it's a lot easier to remove because you can get a screwdriver in there to lever the tabs out. This unit sells for AUD$45.00 with a free tube of thermal paste.

Vantec K7D-5030

This odd-looking unit from Vantec is probably most interesting because of the black plastic shroud enclosing the fans. On closer inspection it does not project much below the bottom of the fans so I wonder how much airflow direction it is actually providing. I think the biggest effect it will have on airflow is to restrict intake into the fans, which is not a good thing. Also, the heatsink is nice bare aluminium with lots of tall thin fins in the centre, but most of this area is inhabited by the core of the fan and the blades themselves spend a fair bit of time over a long trench cut on each side down the length of the sink. Again, the placement of the fans (or perhaps the design of the sink) seems a little odd and at first glance my hopes are not too high for this unit. It uses a strange sliding-clip mechanism to mount but this works surprisingly well once you work it out (no instructions included). Quite convenient to put on, a little fiddly to remove but grips firmly and it's dissapointing that Vantec don't use this mounting clip on their other coolers. The twin 50mm Y.S.Tech ball-bearing fans are both intelligent but they come pre-wired together into one header which presumably means you can only monitor one fan. This unit sells for AUD$35.00 with a free tube of thermal paste.

Vantec K7T-5030

Despite having an almost identical model number to the previous cooler, this unit is completely different with no shroud, different fans (Y.S.Tech 50mm - similar to the previous one but sleeve bearings and more aggressively angled blades), a completely different heatsink and different mounting clips. This unit looks the biz, with a high fin density and well-placed fans. It is similarly pre-wired into 1 header so even if you wanted to monitor both fans, you can't. The mounting clip is fantastic. Pop on, pop off, no worries. I take back my comments from the previous unit, Vantek should use THIS clip on all their coolers. In fact, if someone's making a SECC1-mounting-clip standard I'd urge them to look at this simple design. This unit sells for $35.00 with a free tube of thermal paste.