Before going dual core blimey Opteron, first find a cooler for it

CHIMPZILLA'S latest dual-core Opteron CPUs use the firm's new revolutionary Socket-F sporting a CPU with no pins. Yet while motherboards and CPUs are widely available, coolers for the new socket are far from ubiquitous yet.

Dual Core AMD Opteron(s) with Socket-F selling "WOF" both in America and Blighty

Thanks to Ben Berraondo of ASUS UK and Nicolas Canovas of AMD Argentina, the INQ's Latin America HQ is almost ready to have its desktop test bed system updated to a Dual-Core Opteron. But while receiving the Opteron 2216 -a 2.4 GHz Socket F with 2MB L2 cache- and the KFN5D-SLI motherboard was a speedy process, this scribbler has been trying to find a place to order a Socket-F cooler affordably, so far without success.

Coolers for the old Socket 940 Opteron(s) are everywhere, even Amazon

None of the local real-world stores -not even the local official Thermaltake distributor- has Socket-F coolers in stock as of this week. And it's not an isolated problem for some INQ correspondent down in South America, it seems. A thread on AMD's forums highlights some of the confusion and despair that has arisen. User Adam from New Mexico said: "Part of the problem is that AMD quietly put out two socket F cooling standards, 4.1" and 3.5". The problem is that the board is a 3.5"/89mm one (meaning the spacing between the two holes), and the heatsink is a 4.1". Concluding: "to make matters worse, 89mm heatsinks don't seem to be available. At least Tyan saw fit to include with their dual socket F boards t-clips to mount a standard (clip on) heatsink".

Socket-F coolers are not as ubiquitous as its older S940 counterparts

A quick search on both Amazon.com, and its .co.uk sister site in Blighty shows that the on-line retailer giant is selling the boxed socket-F Opteron CPUs, but a search for "socket f cooler" returns no results. Instead, when you do a search for the previous Opteron socket, the famous "socket 940", about a dozen different options show up. Of course, you can go to Google's price search engine "Froogle" and enter a "socket f cooler" search query, and indeed a lot of small retailers show up as a result, most offering Thermaltake and/or Dynatron branded coolers, but even in that case, plenty of those sellers then show the part numbers as "out of stock" when you click on the details page. The few small shops which have these coolers in stock, refuse to ship out of the U.S. or refuse to accept international credit cards, making this scribbler retreat to Castle Despair.

Users complaining about heat sinks on AMD's Forums

INQuired about the lack of availability of the firm's "socket F" coolers, a Thermaltake manager in Taiwan told this scribbler: "The low-profile items you're looking for, CL-P0316 / CL-P0317, are specially used for servers, and only manufactured base on orders". Asus thinks otherwise, as their representatives described the KFN5DSLI mobo as "more of an enthusiast server/workstation board", so much for "server only" use. And what if you purchase a server but then need a new cooler?. Is Asus aware of the fact that Socket-F coolers are not as easy to find as S940 ones?. INQuiring minds want to know...

Plenty of small vendors show Socket-F coolers... out of stock

In short, given these facts, with AMD selling "WOF" boxed CPUs -meaning without Fan-, the apparent different mounting standards for coolers, and coupled with the difficulty in finding Socket F coolers online, my advise for the screwdriver crowd around the world who might be thinking of building their own Dual Core Opteron before Yuletide is: first make sure you can get a Socket-F cooler for it.

Save the Eagle, lose an arm and a leg in shipping charges...
Heavy coolers are parts you better find locally, overseas sellers can be costly

Right now, the socket-F parts with the widest interweb availability seem to be from cooling firm Dynatron, but in that case be warned that if you chose to do international shopping, shipping can cost you an arm and a leg, often half the cost of your new, shiny, pin-less $450 dual-core server CPU. Me?, I will probably have to carry my mobo around to cooler shops and see if any Socket-940 Opteron coolers with a "clip-on" design can be made to fit when using plastic 't-clips'. The Asus manual is not clear about this. Plus, the lack of any retention frame and backing plate -because I received an OEM CPU- will be an exciting exercise in frustration, I'm sure. Don't you miss the days when Chipzilla's ZIF socket7 was one of only two standards that one needed to worry about? µ

See Also
Socket-F heat sink problems!, Where are the Socket-F heat sinks?? (AMD Forums)
Socket F dissected - and pictures
AMD Dual-Core Socket-F boxed CPUs at Amazon.com -with no heat sink
AMD Dual-Core Socket-F boxed CPUs at Amazon UK -with no heat sink