New fan budget

jesus2nd

jesus2nd

jesus2nd

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Right, originally I was planning on dropping £45-£65 on a cpu fan for my new build, had a few people recommend the Alpenfohn K2, but I've spent the past few weeks crawling through reviews and benchmark pages and I'm still undecided.

I've also upped my budget to £80.

So, What should I be looking at? I have a Z77-D3H Motherboard and my case is a good 200mm wide so I don't think I have to be too cautious on size...bigger the better right?

Hit me with advice/criticism/abuse/banter...all is appreciated.
Sam
 
Which case specifically and what ram do you have.
Assuming the K2 fits, it's one of the best choices. There's a spread of literally a few degrees between the top options. At this level, looks are a bigger factor tbh.
 
Have you thought about a closed loop water cooler at all? I have recently moved from a massive Thermaltake Frio with 2 120mm fans to a Corsair H60 2013 Edition and so far Its working out much better.
 
richardirv said:
Have you thought about a closed loop water cooler at all? I have recently moved from a massive Thermaltake Frio with 2 120mm fans to a Corsair H60 2013 Edition and so far Its working out much better.
Click to expand...

Haven't really delved into them, I have noticed a few around the £80 mark, would I notice the difference between one of them and a top end air cooler?

And

My case is a Thermaltake Element T (I'll remove that link if I get a *******ing for linking another retailer, sorry)

and
8656-342352-290.jpg

That's my ram
 
Your case has support for coolers up to 180mm, so you're good to use anything out there and your ram shouldn't interfere.
With your budget, any of these will smash it :)

YOUR BASKET
1 x Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E SE CPU Cooler TY-143 Fans (Socket 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £69.98
1 x Phanteks PH-TC14PE CPU Cooler - Black (Socket 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £69.98
1 x Alpenföhn K2 Mount Doom CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £59.99
Total : £211.36 (includes shipping : £9.50).



I've left the D14 off the list as it isn't in stock and it's crazy ugly compared to these :p

I have a K2 myself, but I'd strongly recommend the Thermalright because it's fans are fantastic in terms of performance and low noise levels.
 
My idle temps are lower by a decent margin than the air cooler but the big difference I notice is load temps. When gaming on air my temps would always rise into the 40's + and i needed the fans on quite high if not full. Now I don't need to max out the fan on radiator and the temps stay low. I get around 35-38 degrees when gaming overclocked at 4.5ghz. Plus they look so much better than a massive dopy air cooler.
 
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Uncle Petey said:
Your case has support for coolers up to 180mm, so you're good to use anything out there and your ram shouldn't interfere.
With your budget, any of these will smash it :)

YOUR BASKET
1 x Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E SE CPU Cooler TY-143 Fans (Socket 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £69.98
1 x Phanteks PH-TC14PE CPU Cooler - Black (Socket 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £69.98
1 x Alpenföhn K2 Mount Doom CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £59.99
Total : £211.36 (includes shipping : £9.50).



I've left the D14 off the list as it isn't in stock and it's crazy ugly compared to these :p

I have a K2 myself, but I'd strongly recommend the Thermalright because it's fans are fantastic in terms of performance and low noise levels.
Click to expand...

Cheers fella, I'm going to hang on until tomorrow morning to see if anything pops up in the weekly sales but I'll definitley be getting one of those three ordered...I quite like the look of the d14 :rolleyes:

Thanks once again
 
richardirv said:
My idle temps are lower by a decent margin than the air cooler but the big difference I notice is load temps. When gaming on air my temps would always rise into the 40's + and i needed the fans on quite high if not full. Now I don't need to max out the fan on radiator and the temps stay low. I get around 35-38 degrees when gaming overclocked at 4.5ghz. Plus they look so much better than a massive dopy air cooler.
Click to expand...

Really? Your H60 is better by a huge margin compared to top end aircooling when it's generally accepted that even an H100 isn't unless it's fans are screaming at over 2000rpm?

Looks are subjective mate :) I love the look of a chunky aircooler and the OP thinks even a D14 looks good, so... ;)
 
Thanks for undermining me there Uncle Petey. I'm no expert but I'm quite capable of keeping a check on my pc temps.

Don't forget I am running Sandy Bridge which are known for running cool anyway. Most of the new reviews for cpu coolers are using Ivy Bridge which are known for running hotter.

I'm no expert of coolers, I have a well ventilated case and all I can tell you is the H60 is far superior to my old Frio & to me looks much better. I now don't have issues with my ram hitting the cooler too.

As for a match for other high end coolers, I don't know. All I can give is my own opinion with the equipment I use/have used.
 
I'm sorry if you took offense to what I said mate. None was intended :)

Perhaps comparing the H60 to one of the above mentioned coolers would've been more appropriate like you say. Though I gather the Frio was pretty good, if not as good as those.

Like I said, against those, even an H100 only wins by a few degrees when it's fans are maxed out at around 2.5k rpm compared to say, 1300rpm on the Silver arrow for example.
Given that, you can see why I took exception.

Either way, I'm happy that you're happy with your H60 :)

Out if interest, what fan speeds did you run the Frio at and what speeds do you now run the H60 at?
 
No worries fella.

The Frio was a great cooler to be honest, the only reason I changed was it would not fit on my new motherboard, the backplate would have hit some chips on the back of the board. I wanted a cooler the same day so I could finish the build off. My local pc shop had the new H60 and after reading lots of good reviews I decided to go for it. I had been looking at the 100i but decided it was too expensive for me at the moment. I used to also have trouble with my Ripsaw RAM touching the Frio too. Its now really nice to have all that space to show of the Sabertooth motherboard. hehe!

As for fan speeds the frio had 2 2000rpm 120mm fans I think. I ran them at 1000rpm on idle and always maxed out when gaming to keep the temps down.

The H60 has 1 2500rpm 120mm fan, that also runs at around 1000rpm on idle but seems to keep the temps from rising without cranking the rpm up. I can be gaming now and the fan might only increase by a few hundred rpm. I have it set via a graph in my Thermal Radar software that came with the motherboard. The rpm only starts to increase when the cpu goes over 35 degrees. It all seems to work just fine.

I'd bet if you replaced the stock fan on the H60 an/or added another for push/pull you could get even better temps.

Edit - Forgot to say I have the H60 configured in Intake (Push) on the rear of my case. This used to be an exhaust when the Frio was installed. It does tend to heat the case up a little but the CPU temps are far better this way then setting up as exhaust. I have tried both. I do have 2 120mm Sharkoons exhausting air from the top of the case so its all good!!
 
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Heh, I love the fact that the beefy K2 covers a good portion of my ugly mobo. Dual purpose ftw! :D

I hear that push/pull doesn't really make much difference though, as since the rad is quite slim, it's performance is pretty much maxed with a single fan. Even custom watercooling using thicker rads doesn't benefit much from what I gather.
Replacing the fan with something like a Scythe GT could work well though.

Glad to see you're getting good results with having it on intake and using top exhausts to clear the incoming heat as I recommended the same configuration to someone with an H80 the other day.
 
Its all each to their own I suppose. I just thought it was worth thinking about with the budget in question I only paid £57 for my H60.

If you have a nice motherboard or have RAM with large heatsinks its worth it for that alone.

This picture is slightly out of date now as I fitted a GTX660ti Yesterday to replace my GTX470.

CM690iiCorsairH502013_zps56df0788.jpg
 
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Yeah! I do like thinks to look neat and tidy. Even though 95% of the time its only me looking at it. LOL.

My case power switch cables bug me because there not braided. It makes it look untidy. My power supply cables aren't much better but its gotta stay for now.

I may have some kind of disorder? I don't know? hehe

Does your cooler just use the one fan then? usually coolers with twin heat-sinks use 2 fans.
 
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