need a CPU cooler

Nemesis379 · 18 Apr 2010 at 02:16

i need a good and decent CPU cooler basically

my friends build will be:

Intel Core i7 930 2.80GHz (Bloomfield) (Socket LGA1366) - Retail
Asus ATI Radeon HD 5850 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
BenQ G2420HDBL 24" Widescreen LED Monitor
Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R Intel X58 (Socket 1366) DDR3 Motherboard
Corsair XMS3 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 (1600MHz) Tri-Channel (CMX6GX3M3A1600C9)
Corsair HX 650W ATX Modular SLI Compliant Power Supply (CMPSU-650HXUK)
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD1002FAEX)
Coolermaster Storm Scout Gaming Case - Black

if it helps =/

but what do you recommend?

Schoieuk · 18 Apr 2010 at 02:17

cmndr_andi · 18 Apr 2010 at 02:27

or a Prolimatech Megahalems

or Thermalright Venomous X

Also, make sure you strap on two good fans on it like these for maximum cooling efficiency. Also a fan controller panel (or two individual ones) would be a good investment so you can tune the fans to the optimum balance of performance/noise.

sammo62 · 18 Apr 2010 at 02:34

I like my Noctua NH-D14 but it is enormous.

trentlad · 18 Apr 2010 at 02:43

cmndr_andi said:
Also a fan controller panel would be a good investment so you can tune the fans to the optimum balance of performance/noise.

The Scythe Kama Meter is an awesome fan controller, it also comes with four temp sensors. Great for controlling fan speeds and viewing temps, but the temp accuracy will vary depending on where you locate the sensors.

Nemesis379 · 18 Apr 2010 at 03:12

nice..thanks for the advise

il look up on that.

Nemesis379 · 18 Apr 2010 at 03:16

water cooling is better right?
but whats the downside to it? like how often will it leak?

i kinda like the h-50 design and looks good.

@cmndr andi
those heatsinks look huge and ugly lol. =/

so which to choose?

cmndr_andi · 18 Apr 2010 at 03:25

The H50 is a watercooler - but its performance is not comparable to a proper custom WC kit. It only has a single Rad and is a sealed system made for a tight budget. Therefore, its cooling performance is comparable to a large Air cooler (like the megahalems and Venomous X). However, in terms of noise it tends to be a bit louder than these as it uses a 1600RPM fan and the pump also causes noise.

Ha, yeah - they may look big (personally I quite like the look of my megahalems) but they get the job done.

trentlad · 18 Apr 2010 at 04:28

You only really need water cooling if your thinking of overclocking your components.

Are you planning on OC'ing right off the bat? I wouldn't have thought a brand spanking new rig would need OC'ing.

I'd sooner spend that cash on better components and go for air cooling, if you get a decent heat sink you'll still be able to OC with it.

strumpusplunket · 18 Apr 2010 at 08:39

I'm a big fan of the Megahalems at the moment. Installed one the other day with a single Sharkoon SE 2000. Getting much improved temps, but what really impressed me as well was the overall design and robustness of the Megahalems itself and especially it's mounting mechanism. So many coolers are fiddly to mount, so it was really good to see some well-though out design in this area.

I think the NH-D14 beats it in most air-cooler tests, and that is meant to be fairly straightforward to mount as well. It is more expensive, though, covers a lot more of your motherboard, and can interfere with your RAM slots if you have high-profile heatspreaders.

Plenty of people reporting stable i7 rigs at 4GHz or more with either of these coolers.

Arcimbaldo · 18 Apr 2010 at 09:12

Take a look at the tuniq 120 extreme thats keeping my Phenom II 550 nicely at about 17-20 idle thatn about 30 under full load, this is with an overclock to 3.7ghz and the voltage increased to 1.45.

Nemesis379 · 18 Apr 2010 at 10:49

trentlad said:
You only really need water cooling if your thinking of overclocking your components.

Are you planning on OC'ing right off the bat? I wouldn't have thought a brand spanking new rig would need OC'ing.

I'd sooner spend that cash on better components and go for air cooling, if you get a decent heat sink you'll still be able to OC with it.

no.. dont think il OC yet.

maybe in future though. =/ (after 2-3 yrs)

so i guess the heatsink will do right?

Nemesis379 · 18 Apr 2010 at 10:49

Arcimbaldo said:
Take a look at the tuniq 120 extreme thats keeping my Phenom II 550 nicely at about 17-20 idle thatn about 30 under full load, this is with an overclock to 3.7ghz and the voltage increased to 1.45.

nice..

that cooler looks good in design =)

would that be better cooling than the heatsinks cmndr andi recommended?

Arcimbaldo · 18 Apr 2010 at 12:14

reeceLAV said:
nice..

that cooler looks good in design =)

would that be better cooling than the heatsinks cmndr andi recommended?

I am not sure on that but then again i have no personal experience of those coolers and have of the tuniq, me and a mate have one an agree they are nice, but then i got mine for about 30 quid and those ones are around 45-50, im not sure though you would have to scout about for other peoples opinions.

Helios1234 · 18 Apr 2010 at 12:48

reeceLAV said:
nice..

that cooler looks good in design =)

would that be better cooling than the heatsinks cmndr andi recommended?

The Tuniq Tower 120 Extreme can be better than the Prolimatech Megahalem but it largely depends on the fan being used on the latter. The Tuniq is also loud at maximum speed. The Thermalright VX or even the older 120 Ultra Extreme is superior to the Megahalem.

The best cooler is the Noctua NH-D14 but it's massive.

jorzeh · 18 Apr 2010 at 14:09

trentlad said:
Are you planning on OC'ing right off the bat? I wouldn't have thought a brand spanking new rig would need OC'ing.
QUOTE]

ARE YOU MAD!! !...... !

trentlad · 18 Apr 2010 at 15:31

jorzeh said:
trentlad said:

Are you planning on OC'ing right off the bat? I wouldn't have thought a brand spanking new rig would need OC'ing.
QUOTE]

ARE YOU MAD!! !...... !

Click to expand...

I never really understood why you would straight off the bat, for an older system definitely but something brand new??!

For instance you have a freaking i7 but you've OC'ed it. Why? What are you running that requires more than an i7 can supply running at stock speed??

cmndr_andi · 18 Apr 2010 at 15:40

jorzeh said:
Why? What are you running that requires more than an i7 can supply running at stock speed??

Anything remotely CPU intensive. Most applications benefit from a higher CPU frequency (CAD rendering, unRARing, video encoding, image editing etc.) and in some cases the performance increase is close to linear with increasded core speed. So the reason for OCing immediately is faster apps and less time wasted waiting for stuff to happen.

Also, i7 920 CPUs can OC to 4GHz+ using air cooling, this is a 50% clockspeed bost over stock.

Finally, some games do benefit from extra CPU clockspeed. GTA4, Far Cry 2 and Bad Company 2 immediately spring to mind.

jorzeh · 18 Apr 2010 at 18:34

Cmndr stated why

and to be fair i'll be pushing partner for a new mobo ram cpu when the 8cores are out (teehee)

next upgrade will be my video card then i give this 4870x2 to the other half.