Ivy Bridge Core i3 Heatsink and Fan Combo – Copper Free Aluminum

I purchased a few Ivy Bridge based Intel Core i3 and Pentium G series CPUs in the period between when they became available and their official release. One thing that I did want to point out to all of those Intel “push pin” retail heatsink and fan is the the new Ivy Bridge Intel Core i3 and Pentium G series retail CPUs do not come with the copper and aluminum heatsink and fan assembly. Here is what I have seen thus far of the LGA 1155 heatsink.

One of the first things I noticed upon opening the new retail box is the cooler. Something looked off. It seems like only a few days (OK months) ago I opened my first Intel Core i7-3770K but something looked different.

Intel Core i3 and Pentium Ivy Bridge LGA 1155 Retail Heatsink Fan Bottom

As one can see, there is the same radial heatsink and fan design. Yet the new Ivy Bridge Core i3 and Pentium version is missing something. The copper base! As you can see, the CPU contact area for the cooler is not copper. Instead, it looks like one piece of aluminum.

At first, I was a bit saddened by Intel’s choice for a retail cooler. As of September 12, 2012 the price for copper is about $3.70/ lb. On a $130 Core i3-3220, I was hoping to at minimum get the higher-end cooler with copper in it. I know there is additional cost around using two metals instead of one in the manufacturing process. Sure, shipping weights probably go up a bit with copper coolers bundled. Still, we are talking well under $1 even after distribution costs.

Here is what the new Ivy Bridge retail heatsink and fan looks like from the top. We see it is a Delta unit and we know Intel does try to diversify their retail cooler suppliers.

Intel Core i3 and Pentium Ivy Bridge LGA 1155 Retail Heatsink Fan Top

Of course, the more interesting part of this is that we will start having benchmarks of the Intel Core i3-3220, Pentium G2120 and other parts soon. One thing to remember is that the Core i3-3220 has a TDP of only 55w, unlike the Core i5 and Core i7 (full power) Ivy Bridge series which have 77w TDP.

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