I upgraded the cooler on my i7 920 tonight, thought some may be interested to see the difference 
I built up my new rig (see sig) just over 2 weeks ago, in mind that I would overclock to 4.0ghz. I bought the Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro Rev. 2 with the impression it would be just as good as the old version for AMD chips which people loved. Obviously very naive of me, as those chips are a lot different in design to the i7! Also at >£20 the price was attractive too.
Anyway, 4.0ghz at 1.29v was possible, just way too hot for my liking, we're talking low-mid 80s. I wasn't happy with this, so I knocked it back to this and got the following temps:
Stock Pre-Applied Paste
200 x 19 = 3.8ghz @ 1.24v
Idle : 42 38 42 35
100% max after 15mins Prime95 Blend : 76 75 76 71
So in mind that I set out looking for 4ghz, I shopped around for a new cooler. I was considering the Meghalems cooler as it looked to pretty much be the best on reviews, but seeing that I am a sucker for shiny lights, I went for the Zalman CNPS9900 LED, and at a little under £40 not a bad price for a nice looking cooler which looked to perform nearly as well as the Meghalems.
Fast forward to tonight, and installation. Running the same overclock, same room temperature, I got the following results:
Arctic MX-3 Paste
200 x 19 = 3.8ghz @ 1.24v
Idle : 36 31 37 28
100% max after 15mins Prime95 Blend : 67 64 67 59
So we're looking at around 6 degrees at idle and around 10 degrees under load difference! Well happy Now for completeness I would have run with the Freezer Pro using the MX-3 paste too, but nevermind.
Going to see how it performs at 4ghz and maybe a bit more now!
Heres some pics:
Before.
Before. Going to finish up cable management once I get an 8pin mobo power extension so I can run it behind out of sight!
Removing Freezer Pro showing stock pre-applied paste.
Cleaned up i7 920 D0
Comparison of bases. The Zalman's finish is like a mirror! Well, unless you have flash on
Ready to mount, note mirror finish.
Mounted.
And back in the case.
Fin!
TL;DR?
Don't be a noob like me and do you homework when buying coolers!
I built up my new rig (see sig) just over 2 weeks ago, in mind that I would overclock to 4.0ghz. I bought the Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro Rev. 2 with the impression it would be just as good as the old version for AMD chips which people loved. Obviously very naive of me, as those chips are a lot different in design to the i7! Also at >£20 the price was attractive too.
Anyway, 4.0ghz at 1.29v was possible, just way too hot for my liking, we're talking low-mid 80s. I wasn't happy with this, so I knocked it back to this and got the following temps:
Stock Pre-Applied Paste
200 x 19 = 3.8ghz @ 1.24v
Idle : 42 38 42 35
100% max after 15mins Prime95 Blend : 76 75 76 71
So in mind that I set out looking for 4ghz, I shopped around for a new cooler. I was considering the Meghalems cooler as it looked to pretty much be the best on reviews, but seeing that I am a sucker for shiny lights, I went for the Zalman CNPS9900 LED, and at a little under £40 not a bad price for a nice looking cooler which looked to perform nearly as well as the Meghalems.
Fast forward to tonight, and installation. Running the same overclock, same room temperature, I got the following results:
Arctic MX-3 Paste
200 x 19 = 3.8ghz @ 1.24v
Idle : 36 31 37 28
100% max after 15mins Prime95 Blend : 67 64 67 59
So we're looking at around 6 degrees at idle and around 10 degrees under load difference! Well happy
Now for completeness I would have run with the Freezer Pro using the MX-3 paste too, but nevermind.Going to see how it performs at 4ghz and maybe a bit more now!
Heres some pics:
Before.
Before. Going to finish up cable management once I get an 8pin mobo power extension so I can run it behind out of sight!
Removing Freezer Pro showing stock pre-applied paste.
Cleaned up i7 920 D0
Comparison of bases. The Zalman's finish is like a mirror! Well, unless you have flash on
Ready to mount, note mirror finish.
Mounted.
And back in the case.
Fin!
TL;DR?
Don't be a noob like me and do you homework when buying coolers!
