Installation:

One of the nice things about the Beetle is it comes with very complete full color instructions on how to install the heatsink. I used the cooler on both an AMD K7 platform as well as an Intel P4 platform. Installation on any of the platforms is fairly similar, you install the corresponding bar on the top of the base, then use either the clips or screws to secure it down. The K7 used an H-bar and screws to attach itself to the four mounting holes around the socket. This provides a very secure method of attaching the heatsink, and while it did require the removal of the motherboard it was easy enough to do.

Front	and Back

The P4 installation however was a bit more complicated. While the P4 and the K8 sockets theoretically could be installed without removing the motherboard from the case, there is a 90% chance you won't be able to in your case thanks to the heatsinks massive size. For the P4 you install an I bar onto the base of the cooler, then attach clips into the P4 retention module. You then tighten a screw into each clip to apply pressure to the I bar. While it sounds easy enough it was a huge pain. If you don't apply pressure to the opposite side of the I bar with your hand while tightening the opposite screw then its almost impossible to get it on right, and trying to tighten the screw with only one hand is a pain in the butt. It took me a good 20 minutes to get it installed. Here are a few pictures of the process.

The Stock Sink	Positioned On The CPU	Added The I bar

Then The Clips	And Finally The Screws

Once it was together the heatsink felt quite sturdy. I felt confident that the cooler wasn't going anywhere once the screws were tightened. However once I tried getting the motherboard back into the case I ran into more headache. A combination of the heatsink's size and the position of the power supply in the case, made it impossible to get two of the screws for the motherboard in. Even if the Power supply weren't there it still would have been a pain. Definitely wouldn't be able to get them in with a normal sized screw driver. Once I finally got the board in and with enough screws that I wasn't wary of tipping the case upright again I came to another headache. The heatsink is so tall that it actually protrudes 1/4" too far out so that my side panel wouldn't fit on anymore. While I'm sure its not entirely Thermaltake's fault, my case is a little thin on the inside, it's still a disappointment. I did however, have no clearance issues in the Lian-Li it was in for the AMD setup.

Installed In The Case	Quite Big

As soon as you fire it up for the first time you'll notice the LEDs installed in the cooler. There is a blue LED on each side of the cooler as well as LEDs in the center fan hub. The LEDs in the center hub slowly change to four different colors giving a really nice effect that's sure to give that special little something into any case mod project. I threw together a quick GIF animation to give you an idea how it looks.

Performance:

The cooler was put through tests on both a K7 platform as well as the P4 platform. Temperatures were logged every 2 minutes while both idling and under load using CPU Burn-In to get the average temps. The test were run under both stock conditions as well as overclocked conditions. All tests were run with side panels off the case so that we could get performance numbers of the heatsinks, not of the cases.

The two test beds are fairly similar except for the obvious differences like CPU and chipsets. Test rigs are shown in the table below.

Idle Temps

You can see temps improve quite a bit when compared to the stock coolers that came with the CPU's. There was a huge differance between the temp with the cooler's fan on low and high, about 7 degrees onn the AMD and 6 on the Intel. The performance came at a cost though. The fan is quite loud on high. The performance was of high quality however, with the temps on high being 32 degrees with the OC'ed AMD and 24 on the OC'ed Intel.

Now the load temps:

Load Temps

Here we see a huge improvement compared to the stock coolers. With a 14 degree drop on the OC'ed AMD to 44 deg and a 13 degree drop on the OC'ed Intel to 46 deg. The temps on the stock coolers were 58 for AMD and 59 for the Intel.

Overall Thoughts:

The Thermaltake Beetle definitely has same great benefits as well as some big drawbacks. While it's definitely a sharp looking cooler with the unique design, it's large size and loud fan make it unsuitable for some. The shear size of the cooler makes installation a pain, and quite possibly impossible for some configurations.

One thing I mentioned earlier is the absence of a 3-4 pin adapter. I had the cooler attached to my motherboards 3 pin cpu fan header for about 3 days when I noticed the fan stopped working. I looked and couldn't find a problem, until I plugged the fan in elsewhere and it started spinning again. Having the fan plugged directly into the header killed it. I now have it plugged into a 3-4 pin adapter, but of course the fan monitoring is gone because of that, which is why I didn't include the fan speeds in the review. Very disappointing considering the size of the fan should instantly required it to come with an adapter.

Overall however I love the cooler and I think it's worth the price, both in performance and in looks.