2700K - Top Air Coolers help

DeanV255

DeanV255

DeanV255

Associate
Joined
16 Aug 2012
Posts
165
Location
York
Hey im looking to purchase a 2700K to help with my workloads on my computer. My Phenom II 965BE is a great CPU for gaming but struggles for the more CPU heavy work.

Im trying to work out the best Air Cooler i can get as i've been looking at reviews and benchmarks since the 11th and so many tests have such varied results, even with delta temps taking into consideration, but here i have a few top contending CPU coolers that always seem to be up in the high spectrum of the charts with some just lagging behind the quite a bit more expensive H80 and H100 water coolers.

- Noctua NH-D14
- Zalman CNPS11x
- Prolimatech Megahalems

Now from that the safest bet is the Nocuta, ive seen many people get 4.8GHz with temps upto 75c so thats pretty good. I may notgo that high, maybe 4.0GHz or 4.5GHz and try adn keep the temps below 70c.

What would you guys recommend? as i know the Noctua is pretty expensive and ugly so i'd any other CPU Coolers that are high end please dont hesitate to send it my way.
 
I have generic low profile RAM. Though i do expect to upgrade to some Mushkin Radioactive 8GB soon.

My case is a HAF X, i think my signature should update with this post hopefully.
 
Also i have looked at the Silver Arrow but i've heard it has problems with high clearance RAM. With that said it is a really good CPU Cooler i have overlooked and i remember seeing a head to head against the Noctua NH-D14 and i think it matched it blow for blow until the higher voltages kicked in making just the smallest gap between them.
 
The coolers that get the highest reccomendations are.

Noctua NH-D14
Thermalright silver arrow
Alpenfohn k2
Phanteks PH-TC14PE

All of theese are dual tower coolers and perform within a few c of each other, id go for whichever you can find cheapest. I had a prolimatech super mega, was a good cooler but i replaced it with a k2. Much better cooling, and a fair bit cheaper as it came with decent stock fans. With the mega i had to purchase my own. Of course with the dual tower coolers, low profile ram is a must.
 
I'v never heard of the Alpenfohn K2 but it looks great, a lot better looking as well though the prices seem a bit higher than the Noctua NH-D14.

Speaking of the Super Mega, that was the cooler i started of with, i was looking at it and performance was excellent but it's older brother the Megahalems had a few, maybe 2c head on them with a push pull config.

Buy ultimatly thats what its down to, i can get whatever one of these and they will be great. Its choose choosing what will get me a lower temps at the higher clock (voltage if you must) against cost. Looks are not very important to me even though i may go on about them a bit. I will try look around for the Alpenfohn k2 as thats really caught my eye. I already have two fans on my current CPU cooler so it will be nice to put these two other fans in other areas of my case :)
 
If you've got RAM with stupidly tall heatspreaders then you may have a problem with any of the big twin tower coolers, as long as your RAM is standard height or lower you should be okay. There is a little give in most of the spring clips for the fans and worst case scenario you'd likely to find with standard height RAM is that the fan may rest on top. If you used low profile RAM like the Samsung Green then it is a non-issue.
 
Ive been using the k2 for a while now, it's cooling a much hotter running i7 920 at 4ghz. Load temps of 77c max under LinX/IBT stress testing.

IMG_0035-1.jpg


I payed £59.99 for it from ocuk. It is indeed a rather nice looking peice of kit, very well made as well with an excellent mounting system.
 
The Mushkin series of RAM's im looking at are fairly lower profile. I either want a Mushkin Redline Enhanced with the FostByte heatsink or the Mushkin Radioactive that has the same heatsink. They are both considered fairly low profile. Much lower than Corsair Vengeance for example or so i believe.
 
setter said:
Ive been using the k2 for a while now, it's cooling a much hotter running i7 920 at 4ghz. Load temps of 77c max under LinX/IBT stress testing.

IMG_0035-1.jpg


I payed £59.99 for it from ocuk. It is indeed a rather nice looking peice of kit, very well made as well with an excellent mounting system.
Click to expand...

Oh my that is very nice. It looks big, beefy and sturdy, very well built as you said and a great system. I've looked and those 920's are great CPU's but do run hotter.

The only problem i have right now is price, if OCuK are still selling it for £59.99 it has £8.25 shipping on top of that as i'm not eligible to free delivery. Were as i could get it from a local shop near me (A Noctua NH-D14) for £61 and its right up the street so i can pick it up in 10 mins basically. So thats a slight dilemma i wish i didn't have to contend with.
 
Yep, £61.00 and local is pretty good. Tbh, theres so little between the dual tower coolers performance wise, it's not a bad idea to go with the one you can source for the least amount of money.
 
Cheers for the advice then guys. Getting most hardware is pretty black and white for me as i work with computers for a living but when it came to moving to an Intel System and it came time to choose a CPU Cooler my brain just blanked as i use to just grab one from the shelves for about £25 to £30 but this was before i got into overclocking.

So yeah thanks again. I think i will go with the Noctua NH-D14 mostly for the overclocking head room. I will post a few pictures in a few weeks when i have the system up and running when i have sorted out the cables at the bottom of the case :D I just need to sell this Motherboard and CPU i got from someone thats new but it got thte exact same power as my 965BE so i dont need it. Anyone interested? Let me know as its on ebay :) money i get from it will be going to this new Intel system of course.
 
Helios1234 said:
It's good for the price but not in the same league as the dual tower coolers.
Click to expand...
Yup, having owned an original TRUE 120 and then it's almost identical competitor, (super mega). Both were good, but my k2 is in a different league alltogether.
 
I think my Thor hammer is a sorely overlooked CPU cooler. Currently its running my CPU at 25c to 27c doing odd desktop work and lowest it gets to is 23c and under load it never passes 35c. But its when it comes to overclocking its poor specifically in comparison to the dual towers its like a play toy.
 
DeanV255 said:
I think my Thor hammer is a sorely overlooked CPU cooler. Currently its running my CPU at 25c to 27c doing odd desktop work and lowest it gets to is 23c and under load it never passes 35c. But its when it comes to overclocking its poor specifically in comparison to the dual towers its like a play toy.
Click to expand...

35C? oh.. AMD, its wrong ;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom