Up close I can list some of the features contained in the Crosshair 4 Extreme - the first of which is that imposing heatsink assembly.


The large heatsink.

Despite its size (which would suggest a passive design) it does include a small 'laptop style' blower that provides airflow to the northbridge and mosfet portions of the heatsink. This will hopefully allow safer high voltage/clockspeed usage without the need for additional cooling solutions and extra fans.


Look closely and you'll see the fan.

Once removed you can see the work the heatsink's doing - a combination of thermal pads and thermal paste accross the mosfet and northbridge chipset respectively.


The underside of the sink.

Seperating the upper portion of the cooler from the lower shows what's going on. The blower section is just that - pretty much cosmetic but still structural in that it flows air over the lower heatsink section.


The blower section.

That lower section is the business end with the heatpipe and finned heatsink array working to cool the board components they come into contact with.


The bare heatsink.

This upper main assembly is attached via a heatpipe to the southbridge heatsink. Under this sink resides the southbridge chipset and also virtually the most important feature of this board... the Lucid HydraLogix chip which you will see in a minute.


The southbridge heatsink.

The underside of this sink shows the same thermal pad/paste combination. The chipst is contacted with paste while the Hydra uses the thermal pad.


The underside.