Quiet Fan for Phenom II x6 : Advice

CWHG · 5 Jul 2020 at 00:50

Hello,

I've brought my old Phenom II x6 1050T back to life to use as my office computer.

The stock AMD cooler is a bit noisy for my liking and I have been thinking of buying a quieter CPU cooler.

I'm out of the loop when it comes to hardware, I built this machine about 8 years ago.

I'm not going to be overclocking or gaming, so was wondering if anyone has any recommendations for a decent and quiet CPU cooler for this processor? According to CPU-Z the Max TDP is 129.6 and speed fan is saying that my CPU is running at 38C with the stock cooler.

The board is an ASUS M4A78LT-M

I'm planning on rehousing into a smaller case in the future so thought that a top flow, low profile cooler would remove any potential size compatibility issues in the future?

Would like to spend as little as possible!

Any suggestions would be warmly welcomed.

Thanks.

CWHG · 5 Jul 2020 at 01:11

Would something like this offer enough cooling?

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/be-quiet-shadow-rock-lp-low-profile-cpu-cooler-120mm-hs-011-bq.html

Or is that over kill?

Could I get away with something really cheap like this, https://www.overclockers.co.uk/raijintek-zelos-low-profile-cpu-cooler-hs-010-rt.html ?

Thanks

CWHG · 6 Jul 2020 at 15:18

Very friendly bump.

Any advice would be wonderful.

Thanks

Jay85 · 6 Jul 2020 at 16:05

Back in the day i used a Zalman Turbine style air cooler with an aluminium base. Before i moved onto AIO's and then eventually only custom watercooling loops. Never looked back since. This cooler was more than sufficient though. It was whisper quiet as well.

CPU temps were kept in around 57c on prime95 load which isn't bad!

CWHG · 7 Jul 2020 at 00:40

Thanks Jay85.

That turbine looks like a beast! A little large for what i'm looking for.

As I mentioned before, I'm looking for something low profile as i will be downsizing case in the near future.

Any suggestions on the 2 options I posted above?

Thanks.

Kei · 7 Jul 2020 at 11:44

I cooled an overclocked FX8320 with a Noctua NH-L12 and had no issues. (linked the current S version of it which has a slim 120mm fan vs the 92mm one mine has) It's a bit expensive in comparison to the ones you were looking at. I imagine the bequiet should do the job.

Two good alternatives:
Alpenföhn Black Ridge or Raijintek Pallas 120 RGB though don't expect the fans to be anywhere near as good as noctua or bequiet.

doyll · 7 Jul 2020 at 13:18

Tower coolers almost always cool better than downflow. Reason is cool air flow in front of tower, through, out and right into case exhaust vent behind cooler. Downflow coolers flow air down hitting motheboard and turning out, hitting RAM, GPU, etc and turning up along side of cooler where fan draws this already used heated air back into cooler.

So most any decent 120mm fanned tower will be fine, of course with fans with 600-1600rpm. There are a few PCGH edition coolers with only 700rpm fans. I would not get one of them unless I was going to change fan to one with 500-1600rpm range I already have. Some people are happy with just 700rpm but if CPU temp is 85c with fan running 700rpm it will be like 60-65 with fan at 1400rpm, maybe even less. Obviously case fans have to cycle similar so case is flowing at least as much air (I prefer a little more) than coolers are using. If case does not, than coolers have to re-used their own heated exhaust air to make up the differnce and of course will run hotter than if they have all the cool intake air they need.