The base plate of the P3125 is made out of copper. Copper transfers heat faster than aluminum. However copper retains heat longer. Aluminum on the other hand transfers heat at a slower rate but can get rid of it quicker than copper. What Alpha did was combined the best of both worlds. By using a copper base plate the P3125 can transfer heat off the CPU core faster. The base plate transfer its heat to the aluminum heatsink which quickly  gets rid of it.

There are two "blow holes" cut into the base plate. These let in air from the overhead fans to help cool the L2 cache. It works quite well but not as well as using a proper L2 cache spacer. The base plate has holes for P3 and Celeron mounting. One has to wonder why Alpha didn't just go ahead and added holes for P2 mounting as well. I guess that would take sales away from the P125.

Here is something that's very odd. The P3125 heatsink uses four rolls of fins. However the front roll doesn't go up as high as the other three. The reason for this totally escapes me. I doubt it affects performance that much however. There is still a lot of fin area to dump heat.

The mounting hardware used by the P3125 is truly first rate. Alpha makes some of the best mounting hardware I've ever seen. No flimsy clips here. The unit uses a combination of spring mounts and bolts to tie the P3 to the heatsink nice and tight.

Next page: How does it perform?

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