Tragedy struck during the second stage of the review after installing the ORB onto my P5ND2-SLI Deluxe mob. I was elated to find a new beta (ver. 0905) BIOS for the SLI deluxe board was available from Asus website. I'd hoped this would allow me to finally test some OCZ Gold 6400 which wouldn't run on that board previously. I prefer to download and boot from file rather then hope nothing goes wrong with the Internet, so I did and as soon as the flash process started I was confronted with a BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death). I knew it was all over but the crying which I did, and here I am testing on the ole work-horse my P5AD2-E Premium. A board that has had two water-cooling leaks into the PCIEX16x slot and still keeps on ticking. However for those who own a P5ND2-SLI Deluxe I've included a few installation photos to show the ORB will mount on the P5ND2 as well.



The ORB's cooling fins didn't extend as far over the DIMMs as in the case of the DFI Lanparty, however, DDR2 doesn't run nearly as hot. What may seem like a deficit (obscuring access to RAM) is actually a benefit insofar as secondary cooling is concerned. Not only does the 12cm fan provide cooling for the memory, it cools Mosfetts and the NB as well.



Thermaltake's design maximizes every bit of air-flow from the 120mm fan the aluminum cooling fins not extend beyond the fan blades but rise up to encircle the fan. While the ORB is large it doesn’t have the advantage heat-pipe designs do since the heat-pipes themselves can be used to raise the radiator well above the board and it's components. Thermaltake engineers must have measured just about every LGA-775 board on the market ensuring he relatively low profile ORB remains close to the heat source. In the photo below i was going to install a NB H20 cooler and test the temp difference in performance between Asus passive NB-HS, H20 cooling and the ORB's secondary cooling. Unfortunately I lost the P5ND2 during the BIOS flash/crash.



As I stated above Thermaltake obviously took some individual measurements to ensure their cooler would fit on just about every board. The tolerance in this photo epitomizes that precision design.



Asus P5AD2-E Premium

Intel Test System
CPU	Pentium 630 Retail (SL7Z9 3.0GHz 2MB L2 1.25V ~ 1.388Vcore) Socket-775
Mainboards	1.) Asus P5AD2-E Premium (BIOS 1005) 2.) Asus P5ND2-SLI Deluxe
Memory	Crucial Tracer Ballistix 5300 (2x512MB DC CL4-4-4-12)
Graphics	1.) AOpen Aeolus 7800GTX-DVD256
Power Supply	PCPower&Cooling TurboCool 850 SSI
Cooling	1.) Intel Stock LGA-775 HSF 2.) Thermaltake Blue ORB II 3.) Alphacool NexXxos XP CPU water-block, Alphacool AP1510 centrifugal pump (OASE), CAPE Cora 642 Convect Maxi passive radiator.
Operating System	Windows XP

This will be our Intel LGA-775 test bed, while it's no C19 Intel's 925XE introduced the 1GHz FSB as the final iteration of the 925 chipset. Mounting clearance on this board weren't nearly as tight as on the DFI LAN party UT where memory access was obstructed, nor as cumbersome as on the P5ND2-SLI where memory access was possible yet difficult. For the P5AD2-E Premium the ORB leaves much more room to breathe (or exhale) as it was.



The ORB's propensity for secondary cooling is ideally suited for the P5AD2-E Premium's passive NB cooler and its integrated mosfett cooler, which is made of 100% copper.



Moving around the cooler it becomes clear secondary cooling from the unit will benefit all components within the proximity of the HSF radius.



This close-up of the cooler's base is taken from the NB angle as you can see the retention mount. The fins thickness is substantial compared to other designs the shape exudes thermodynamic purpose.



Finally back around from the opposite angle (top of the board) the stand-offs are based upon exacting tolerances just making contact with the P5AD2-E Premium's copper mosfett cooler. The ORB would make an ideal air-cooler for Asus P5 motherboards, especially given Asus penchant for passive cooling on their motherboards.