Intel Q9450 - Core 2 Quad Quad-Core Processor Design Manual page 22

Processor Thermal/Mechanical Information
®
For ATX platforms using the Intel Core™2 Quad processor Q6000 series at 95 W, an
active air-cooled design, assumed be used in ATX Chassis, with a fan installed at the
top of the heatsink equivalent to the D60188-001 reference design (see Chapter 5)
should be designed to manage the processor TDP at an inlet temperature of
35 ºC + 5 ºC = 40 ºC.
The slope of the thermal profile was established assuming a generational
improvement in thermal solution performance of the Intel reference design. For an
®
example of Intel Core™2 Extreme quad-core processor QX6000 series at the
®
775_VR_CONFIG_05B Intel Core™2 Extreme quad-core processor QX6700 in an ATX
platform, its improvement is about 15% over the Intel reference design (RCFH-4).
This performance is expressed as the slope on the thermal profile and can be thought
of as the thermal resistance of the heatsink attached to the processor,  (Refer to
CA
Section 3.1). The intercept on the thermal profile assumes a maximum ambient
operating condition that is consistent with the available chassis solutions.
For Balanced Technology Extended (BTX) platforms, a front-to-back cooling design
equivalent to Intel BTX TMA Type I reference design (see the document of Balanced
Technology Extended (BTX) System Design Guide ) should be designed to manage the
processor TDP at an inlet temperature of 35 ºC + 0.5 ºC = 35.5 ºC.
®
The thermal profiles for the processor Intel Core™2 Extreme quad-core processor
QX6000 series at the 775_VR_CONFIG_05B are defined such that a single thermal
solution (e.g., RCFH-4 or BTX TMA Type I reference design) can be used for all
775_VR_CONFIG_05B processors (TDP = 130 W). See Chapter 5 for a discussion of
the RCFH-4.
To determine compliance to the thermal profile, a measurement of the actual
processor power dissipation is required. The measured power is plotted on the
Thermal Profile to determine the maximum case temperature. Using the example in
®
Figure 3 for the Intel Core™2 Extreme quad-core processor QX6000 series at the
775_VR_CONFIG_05B dissipating 110 W the maximum case temperature is 61.1 °C.
See the datasheet for the thermal profile.
22 Thermal and Mechanical Design Guidelines