Recommend me an aftermarket CPU cooler

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stupar

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Afternoon folks,

Currently going through the motions of breathing some new life into my PC.
Currently in the process of increasing the RAM and changing the CPU.

I've never been a fan of intel CPU fans so now is a good time to switch over to something different.
I plan to clock the CPU slightly so will be looking for extra cooling.

The case already has 2 extra fans in it so that should be ok.

I'm not in to any fancy water cooling malarky just a better cooler.
People have told me that Zalman and coolermaster ( i think) are the ones to look at.

What have you got and what are your recommendations?

Cheers!
 
How much you wanting to pay and what's the processor?

I use Scythe Ninjas, but they're not cheap. I run an E8400 at stock (it's thermal profile is 65W TDP) completely passively. I also have one on an overclocked (to 4.3GHz) i7-2600k (95W) with the fan set to it's lowest setting (below 600 rpm). It keeps the cores at a reported 30 deg C at idle and even flat out overclocked runs in the late 60's deg C although the mobo does increase the fan speed to help with cooling when really being pushed. I also have an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro on an AMD processor.
 
arad85 said:
How much you wanting to pay and what's the processor?

I use Scythe Ninjas, but they're not cheap. I run an E8400 at stock (it's thermal profile is 65W TDP) completely passively. I also have one on an overclocked (to 4.3GHz) i7-2600k (95W) with the fan set to it's lowest setting (below 600 rpm). It keeps the cores at a reported 30 deg C at idle and even flat out overclocked runs in the late 60's deg C although the mobo does increase the fan speed to help with cooling when really being pushed. I also have an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro on an AMD processor.
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I will be running an E7400 C2D 2.8ghz. Plan on spending around £30-40 max.
 
Be careful buying very large coolers, not only do you have to make sure there's room but the weight can put a great deal of strain on the retaining bracket if you use a floor standing case. I've had a bracket fail (probably as I moved the tower) in just that way before.
 
stupar said:
I will be running an E7400 C2D 2.8ghz. Plan on spending around £30-40 max.
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If you've got a big enough case (i.e. high enough to take it) and reasonable air flow, the Ninja will run that completely passively. £40 - job done.
 
Steep said:
Be careful buying very large coolers, not only do you have to make sure there's room but the weight can put a great deal of strain on the retaining bracket if you use a floor standing case. I've had a bracket fail (probably as I moved the tower) in just that way before.
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From memory, all the newer chip designs are through the board mounts. A bit fiddly to do but very solid thereafter.
 
Steep said:
Be careful buying very large coolers, not only do you have to make sure there's room but the weight can put a great deal of strain on the retaining bracket if you use a floor standing case. I've had a bracket fail (probably as I moved the tower) in just that way before.
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arad85 said:
If you've got a big enough case (i.e. high enough to take it) and reasonable air flow, the Ninja will run that completely passively. £40 - job done.
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Cheers guys some food for thought! :thumbs:
 
The Hyper 212+ is pretty impressive for the price and the cooling it provides; does a good job for me although I don't OC.
 
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neil_g said:
another vote for scythe, although im running low profile alpenfohns at the moment. as said if getting a heavy cooler in a tower i would personally look for ones that bolt through the board.

although normally cheap stuff, worth spending a few more quid for some arctic silver.
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Cheers for that, for a few extra pounds I think I will get the arctic silver.
 
neil_g said:
although normally cheap stuff, worth spending a few more quid for some arctic silver.
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How much difference does it really make?

I need to rebuild my i7 machine due to the "issue" Intel found with their first batch of P67 chips. Right royal pain - especially since Asus won't ship a board before I rebuild - but that's another story. I've bought a tube of Arctic MX-4 for £3 only because the last time I swapped coolers was many, many years ago and the tube of thermal paste I had was a tad gravelly to say the least.

I have two takes on this. First is heat is bad, second, my day job is program managing set-top box designs for a silicon company (:wave: to anyone who can figure out who I am from that). When I asked the other day about a heat related issue as the customer heatsink was quite "minimal", the answer I got was that we qualify our chips for junction (i.e. on chip) temperatures for 125 deg C. These chips are designed to be decoding and on 24/7 and we sell millions of them so it kinda makes you wonder whether the PC guys are too conservative or our experienced and very well qualified product engineering guys need a bout of shock treatment...
 
arad85 said:
How much difference does it really make?
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never done a side by side comparison so cant really answer with any scientific merit.. but silver is supposed to have a better thermal transfer..

dont know if it had any baring but i can run my Q9550 at 100% for 10 hours solid and get a max core temp of 57c with the alpenfohn cooler.

i mean a tube of AS is £6 and will have enough to reapply 5 or 6 times maybe so for a couple of quid its probably worth a shot :D
 
I bought an Akasa CPU heatsink/fan for my (will fit either Intel or AMD) for about £20. Came with thermal paste, was easy to fit and reduced temps by 30deg, now idles around 25degC. I've a E6600 clocking to 3.0Ghz. Gets a bit warmer though when firing up games or photoshop batches but no more than 60deg, much better than the stock heatsink/fan.
 
As above, it's well worth spending a few pounds on good TP and the Silver has a good reputation; search YouTube for how to apply it.
 
neil_g said:
dont know if it had any baring but i can run my Q9550 at 100% for 10 hours solid and get a max core temp of 57c with the alpenfohn cooler.
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You missed my point... Our guys say 125 deg C is ACCEPTABLE and will happily qualify a chip for many years running 24/7 at that temperature... Getting 0.5 deg C extra cooling with paste that is 2x the price seems a little over zealous...
 
arad85 said:
You missed my point... Our guys say 125 deg C is ACCEPTABLE and will happily qualify a chip for many years running 24/7 at that temperature... Getting 0.5 deg C extra cooling with paste that is 2x the price seems a little over zealous...
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do you ever have points? :p

yeah maybe, but it makes me feel a little bit geekier inside. anyway on the basis that you get 5-6 applications out of a tube its only £1 a time.
 
I've got an Asus v60 (IIRC) cooling a E5200 running at 3.8GHz - sounds like a tornado at 10 paces but it keeps things cool.

If you are only overclocking it slighty I'd stick to the stock HSF as it will do the job. I'd try it first and see how you go. If you get high temps then get an after market one
 
latercomer2 said:
I've got an Asus v60 (IIRC) cooling a E5200 running at 3.8GHz - sounds like a tornado at 10 paces but it keeps things cool.

If you are only overclocking it slighty I'd stick to the stock HSF as it will do the job. I'd try it first and see how you go. If you get high temps then get an after market one
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Cheers for the info!
I dumped 4 gb of ram in it last night and OC'd my E4500 2.2ghz chip to 2.75ghz on stock voltages and the temps were about 40-42 C at idle.

I think the stock cooler would handle it but it has been in the machine since I built it about 5 years ago and has dust embedded beyond the surface. Plus i find the stock ones very noisy.

So rather than take it out and clean it I think I will just replace it.
Question is I have also been offered an E7400 at a stupid price so considering wether to drop that chip in whilst the old fan is out or stick with the E4500 :thinking:
 
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stupar said:
Question is I have also been offered an E7400 at a stupid price so considering wether to drop that chip in whilst the old fan is out or stick with the E4500 :thinking:
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Depends if you're going to overclock it or not. At a guess, the O/C'd E4500 is about the same as the stock E7400.
 
Would plan on overclocking whatever chip goes in.
will I see much of a benefit from an oc'd e4500 running at 2.75ghz compared to an e7400 clocked to about 3.5ghz?

I know I gain the advantage of a larger front bus from 800 to 1066
 
Noisy yes but it will do the job of cooling if its not overcloced. As stuart is planning on cranking it up its a moot point.
 
stupar said:
So rather than take it out and clean it I think I will just replace it.
Question is I have also been offered an E7400 at a stupid price so considering wether to drop that chip in whilst the old fan is out or stick with the E4500 :thinking:
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If its stupid cheap then its definitely worth doing. And get replace the cooler at the same time.
 
I installed an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro when i dumped my amd rig about a year ago and for the price (about £15) it's a great fan. I got a brand new E5300 for about £50 which I planned to overclock. Managed to get it stable at 3.6 ghz with the arctic fan at 30deg. I used the arctic silver 5 paste as well which was about £5. When I threw in 4gb corsair ram which I overclocked too I ended up with a pretty fast and very cheap setup. If you can get the E7400 dirt cheap then deffo install that. If I remember rightly that chip is extremely overclockable just on air cooling.
 
Sean_m said:
I installed an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro when i dumped my amd rig about a year ago and for the price (about £15) it's a great fan. I got a brand new E5300 for about £50 which I planned to overclock. Managed to get it stable at 3.6 ghz with the arctic fan at 30deg. I used the arctic silver 5 paste as well which was about £5. When I threw in 4gb corsair ram which I overclocked too I ended up with a pretty fast and very cheap setup. If you can get the E7400 dirt cheap then deffo install that. If I remember rightly that chip is extremely overclockable just on air cooling.
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John Mc said:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-006-CS&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=1395

Clocking your Cpu increases heat,which is obvious, glad your looking at a new Cpu cooler to do it with. I'd suggest cooling using one of the above, liquid cooling allows a more stable over clock as the temperature doesn't increase imediatly when using the cpu intensively. instead of the sharp increase of heat,the heat is more gradual
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Cheers for the assistance guys, will check out your recommendations later.
 
Just make sure you have decent air flow in your case its well and good getting the upgraded heat sink and fan but if the air flow is pants then it may be pointless.
 
joker2006 said:
Just make sure you have decent air flow in your case its well and good getting the upgraded heat sink and fan but if the air flow is pants then it may be pointless.
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Sorted! Got a rear facing fan venting through holes, a bottom facing fan venting through holes and factory drilled holes on the case door.

All extra fans are controlled by a xilence fan controller
 
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