Do I need an aftermarket cooler if I'm not overclocking?

Merlin5

Merlin5

Merlin5

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I've been told to buy a cooler for a phenom 550 II x2, but to be honest, I wonder if I'm being recommended this for overclocking? I don't think I will be overclocking, so rather than bump my shopping list price even more which is already £100+ over budget, won't the stock cooler be good enough? The gpu will be HD 4870.

Just to add, couple of folks at toms hardware reckon stock cooler is good for general use if not O/Cing.
 
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How noise tolerent are you?

I'm yet to meet a stock cooler which didn't sound offensive. I ran the intel version of this on a e8400 for a while, it's a lot quieter than the stock cooler but does cool a bit better. That is now living out its days with the fan removed in the step mums computer, relying on case airflow. Consequently it's very quiet.

I'd say its worth the 9 quid. A bit case dependent, if you've gone with one full of holes its going to sound nasty whatever hapepns. However a £50 aftermarket cooler is definitely not worth getting for a dual core amd if you're not clocking it.

I hope its been mentioned in your thread, but with the right board you may well turn that into a triple or quad core chip by changing a single setting in the bios. Needs stability testing to make sure the new core(s) work properly, but if so you've just got the cheapest quad core on the market.


edit: that one is indeed pretty full of holes, may as well stick with the stock cooler. Though I would still replace it, its going to be loud whatever happens.
 
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gw_gamer_luke said:
does your case have a lot of fans? if so no if your not overclocking stick with stock cpu cooler but if u do upgrade later on the dark knight is a good cpu cooler
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Thanks. My case will be the coolermaster 690. That takes lots of fans. I can't find the dark knight in the ocUK lists. :confused:
 
Thanks guys, will stick with stock for now.

JonJ678 said:
How noise tolerent are you?

I'm yet to meet a stock cooler which didn't sound offensive. I ran the intel version of this on a e8400 for a while, it's a lot quieter than the stock cooler but does cool a bit better. That is now living out its days with the fan removed in the step mums computer, relying on case airflow. Consequently it's very quiet.

I'd say its worth the 9 quid. A bit case dependent, if you've gone with one full of holes its going to sound nasty whatever hapepns. However a £50 aftermarket cooler is definitely not worth getting for a dual core amd if you're not clocking it.

I hope its been mentioned in your thread, but with the right board you may well turn that into a triple or quad core chip by changing a single setting in the bios. Needs stability testing to make sure the new core(s) work properly, but if so you've just got the cheapest quad core on the market.


edit: that one is indeed pretty full of holes, may as well stick with the stock cooler. Though I would still replace it, its going to be loud whatever happens.
Click to expand...


Jon, thanks for info. I'll have to see how noisy it is. I've just replaced a heatsync and fan on my old XP2000+ and its pretty noisy and annoying. But manageable.
My motherboard is going to be the gigabyte GA MA770 UD3. Will that be able to unlock and is it really as easy as one bios setting?
 
Depends if your processor will do it or not. As for whether that board will do, I don't know. It depends what southbridge is used but I don't know the specifics since I'm an intel guy

Best shot is to ask one of the guys on here who made a thread about unlocking one, though google may be more useful than it was a few months ago when I looked into this.

Good luck :)
 
Thanks mate. I've just completed my order. £471, will receive on tuesday! I can't wait :D At some point, I may consider unlocking and overclocking if I can ever get my head around the mass of detail and facts in the beginners thread, but right now, I'll be happy to just run a phenom x2 550 and a 4870 1GB at stock speeds out of the box. :)
 
Merlin5 said:
Thanks mate. I've just completed my order. £471, will receive on tuesday! I can't wait :D At some point, I may consider unlocking and overclocking if I can ever get my head around the mass of detail and facts in the beginners thread, but right now, I'll be happy to just run a phenom x2 550 and a 4870 1GB at stock speeds out of the box. :)
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What exact spec did you go for in the end, out of interest?
 
jamesgoss said:
What exact spec did you go for in the end, out of interest?
Click to expand...

Hi james. I went for the spec you can see in my screenshot. The only thing I changed after that screenshot is the XFX 4870 512mb. I ordered the HIS 4870 1GB instead which is £103.99. I'll possibly never need the extra vram, but you never know, it could help with future proofing for games and apps and was only £10 more. That's £23 more than the original 4850 I was gonna get, but people at ocUK are too persuasive and keep spending my money for me :p

screenshot472t.jpg
 
If you're not overclocking then most stock coolers are actually pretty silent most of the time.
 
Very nice spec there! I hope you're enjoying it. More time spent on this forum does have a knack of increasing budgets doesn't it??

And regarding the stock cooler, they're usually fine for noise levels. I think , according to FrostyTech, the Intel HSF is among the quietest. So if you're not overclocking, it should be ok.
 
The 690 should run pretty cool, especialy with the side fan running.
There great cases to work with too, have fun :D

ED: God 90 quid for a 4870 too, I remeber paying alomst £175 for mine :rolleyes:
 
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