Best ~£30 AM2/AM3 cooler?

Tonyator · 27 Feb 2009 at 11:59

I am considering upgrading from a 939 system to a Phenom II X4 system, which will mean a CPU cooler upgrade. I have had a look around and at various review and looked into these;

Sunbeam Core Contact Freezer CPU Cooler

Thermalright Ultra-120A CPU Cooler + a fan

Scythe Katana 2 CPU Cooler

All under £30, also I'm looking at a quiet PC, not silent, but quiet, and believe in normal use these would be ok, with low fan speeds. The case is a Antec 300, which I think would fit any of those in. Any other cooler recommendations from anyone are welcome, although I don't really want to go above £30.

Thanks.

iMacMart · 27 Feb 2009 at 12:40

TRU 120 gets my vote

mase · 27 Feb 2009 at 19:42

tweakinfreak said:
TRU 120 gets my vote

Ditto

gt_junkie · 27 Feb 2009 at 19:43

Thermalright U120E vote here too!

gt

Tonyator · 27 Feb 2009 at 19:52

So is that the best in that price area then? And I'm guessin if I OC'ed it would need the fan on it.

gareth170 · 27 Feb 2009 at 20:40

i have a Thermalright Ultra-120A with a YS-TECH FD1225 fan.. its a great cooler.

Topkiddy · 6 Mar 2009 at 16:44

Just looking at these options now but was thinking of the Sunbeam.
Any reasons why you prefer the Thermalright?

OzZie · 6 Mar 2009 at 18:03

I've just got a sunbeam for my q6600.

Idle's in the mid late 20's in a case with no case fans (just an old generic case until i can afford a new one) and peaks at 55 under load, and that's overclocked to 3.0ghz.

Also comes with a very handy fan controller that fits at the rear of your case that you can just use to adjust fan speed. At 50% the fan is very quiet. Even at 100% it isnt really loud to be fair.

Recommended a lot.!

littlepuppy · 6 Mar 2009 at 22:56

Scythe Mugen. Awesome

BigBruiserAl · 7 Mar 2009 at 00:02

I've just got a sunbeam for £22 on here, the cooler itself does it job and fairly well AMDX2 load on prime 39c but the the condition of the cooler was really bad,bent fins the heat pipes look naf mah. On the other hand i also have a Scythe Mugen running another AMD X2 @3.5 and load is 50c fantasic cooler would have again

OzZie · 7 Mar 2009 at 10:46

They are meant to be bent, that's how you fit them onto the heatsink lol

BigBruiserAl · 7 Mar 2009 at 12:00

OzZie said:
They are meant to be bent, that's how you fit them onto the heatsink lol

update on that sunbeam core temp has gone down to 35c on load with prime 95 paste must be bedding in, looks like its going to be a great cooler from ocuk

OzZie · 7 Mar 2009 at 13:37

Did you use the TX-2 that came with it, or something else?

I've used AS5 for the past 4-5 years but this TX-2 totally wipes the floor with it. Not only does it only take a few hours before it settles in, the temps are noticeably reduced.

I applied it thinly over the CPU using an old cashpoint card

Topkiddy · 7 Mar 2009 at 15:47

OzZie said:
Did you use the TX-2 that came with it, or something else?

I've used AS5 for the past 4-5 years but this TX-2 totally wipes the floor with it. Not only does it only take a few hours before it settles in, the temps are noticeably reduced.

I applied it thinly over the CPU using an old cashpoint card

So you reckon TX-2 is superior to AS5 then? Used AS5 5 a lot and happy with results so if this is better great.

datawrite · 7 Mar 2009 at 15:49

Xigmatek HDT-S1283 (H.D.T.) 120mm PWM Fan x3 Heat-pipe Has rave reviews on the net. Can be bought for around £30.

Topkiddy · 7 Mar 2009 at 19:48

BigBruiserAl said:
update on that sunbeam core temp has gone down to 35c on load with prime 95 paste must be bedding in, looks like its going to be a great cooler from ocuk

That looks a very impressive temp. For under 30 quid you can't really go wrong.
The fact the TX-2 paste is bundled is another plus point for it.

Thanks for the advice

datawrite · 7 Mar 2009 at 23:08

I would still go for the Xigmatek HDT-S1283

BigBruiserAl · 7 Mar 2009 at 23:58

Topkiddy said:
That looks a very impressive temp. For under 30 quid you can't really go wrong.
The fact the TX-2 paste is bundled is another plus point for it.

Thanks for the advice

yeah thats what i thought i have always used AS5 but after using TX2 ill never go back, i did put a very thin layer on the cpu then three lines in the cooler after as the book says to use twice the amount on this cooler. That pc was built built purely to crunch and had been crunching for 4 hours at 100% cpu load temp in small office (rooms temp is 25c+) and still 37c

Topkiddy · 8 Mar 2009 at 09:33

BigBruiserAl said:
yeah thats what i thought i have always used AS5 but after using TX2 ill never go back, i did put a very thin layer on the cpu then three lines in the cooler after as the book says to use twice the amount on this cooler. That pc was built built purely to crunch and had been crunching for 4 hours at 100% cpu load temp in small office (rooms temp is 25c+) and still 37c

Well I plan to leave the machine crunching too so 37 is excellent considering my old machine is running at 53.

datawrite · 8 Mar 2009 at 13:14

Am i right in saying that the problem with the Sunbeam Core Contact Freezer is the fact that only the 2 middle pipes actually rest fully on the CPU while the other 2 miss it by half each?