Megahalem vs Phanteks vs Noctua

Altae

Altae

Altae

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14 Apr 2012
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13
Hi folks,

I'm renovating my current system, moving my i5-750 (modestly OCd to 3.2GHz via BIOS) and Gigabyte P55A-UD3 into a new case (Silverstone FT-02) with far better airflow than my current one.

My five year old Corsair H50 AIO is going be replaced in favour of an air-cooled solution, like the following:

1x Prolimatech Black Megahalems with 2x 140mm Noiseblocker BlackSilent Fan XK2
1x Noctua NH-D15 with 2x NH-A15 Fans
1x Phanteks PH-TC14PE with 2x PH-F140 Fans​

My budget is £80. Any thoughts appreciated! :)
 
I wouldn't bother with the Megahelems TBH, I just recently swapped out a budget £20 Raijintek Themis for the £60 black & red version...and it performs no better, in fact it's a couple of degrees warmer, but I'm putting that down to the slim line vortex fan I'm using on it.

I've reseated it twice to make sure I didn't do a dodgy install but it made no difference, temps still disappointing (but within thermal limits) for a £50-£60 cooler, also it comes with a tube of PK2 thermal paste which costs £20, so the average cooling isn't down to poor quality supplied paste.

Also, it's sitting inside one of the very best airflow cases available, the Corsair 450D, so I'd hate to think what the temps would be in something with poor airflow.

It's not that it's a bad cooler, just that you'd expect one costing £60 to significantly outperform a budget £20 cooler.

..but I'm willing to put up with the shortcomings because it looks so awesome in black & red..:p
 
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Phanteks is the only one I have first hand experience with and I liked it a lot.

Fairly easy to fit with a longish screwdriver.
Fan clips a breeze.
Good PWM implementation for the two fans with a splitter.
Quiet.
Worked well on my FX8350.
Recommended.
 
Altae said:
Hi folks,

I'm renovating my current system, moving my i5-750 (modestly OCd to 3.2GHz via BIOS) and Gigabyte P55A-UD3 into a new case (Silverstone FT-02) with far better airflow than my current one.

My five year old Corsair H50 AIO is going be replaced in favour of an air-cooled solution, like the following:

1x Prolimatech Black Megahalems with 2x 140mm Noiseblocker BlackSilent Fan XK2
1x Noctua NH-D15 with 2x NH-A15 Fans
1x Phanteks PH-TC14PE with 2x PH-F140 Fans​

My budget is £80. Any thoughts appreciated! :)
Click to expand...

well mine is perfect at 4.8, but it and the CPU have had quite a bit of work done to them
 
I have both NH-D15 and PH-TC14PE. Both are great coolers .. as are Cryorig R1, Silver Arrow (all 3 models), NH-D14, Alpenfohn K2 / Deepcool Assassin, to name a few others.
 
@doyll Do you feel the Noctua is worth the extra premium over the Phanteks, or do they perform similarly?

My CPU runs at 50C at idle, so if either of them can reduce that with minimal noise, I'll be more than happy!
 
The noctua is excellent - recently purchased one to overclock my 2500k. Its easy to install works brilliantly and also quiet.
 
doyll said:
I have both NH-D15 and PH-TC14PE. Both are great coolers .. as are Cryorig R1, Silver Arrow (all 3 models), NH-D14, Alpenfohn K2 / Deepcool Assassin, to name a few others.
Click to expand...

My testing shows them very close to being the same .. less than 2c difference at most. NH-D15 has NF-A15 1500rpm fans compared to PH-TC14PE having PH-F140HP 1300rpm fans and still they cool the same.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/coolers/display/noctua-nh-d15_5.html#sect0

I've ran both and a few others several different times in same-day testing. Results vary 1-2c (+/-1c) because of differences in barometric pressure / humidity.
 
makesure you have low profile ram with those coolers as you wont have much clearance

esp with older p55 ram
 
I have x4 Kingston Hyper X 2Gb 1333MHz modules with the thin blue/silver heatsink... fingers crossed that's considered 'low profile'!

Thank you for all the helpful comments, everyone - wasn't expecting any at all, so it's nice to be proved wrong. :)
 
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