What is the best air cooler for i5 - i7

Caporegime
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The prolimatech megahelims seems to be the top choice theese days, but the TRUE is still highly rated, though i5 brackets seem to be hard to get at the minute for a lot of coolers.
 
Caporegime
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A few reviews ive seen have it at 2-3c better than the TRUE, also a few users on here are saying good things about it as well, im using a lapped TRUE black which has been pretty good so far on 3 different intel quads.
 
Associate
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Munich, Germany
I dont believe the hype regarding air coolers. If you look at them they are all the same. A plate, heatpipes and some cooling fins. I do not believe that the Chinese makers of these things do wind tunnel, extensive thermodynamic tests and finite element analysis. IMO most of the temp differences with good air coolers can be explained by the difference in ambient air temperature surrounding the case. In Munich where I am its much hotter than in the UK. This explains why my CPU temps are higher than a mate of mine in the UK using exactly the same hardware configuration.

Still I bought a NH-U12P SE2 for my current i7 860 build. Its pretty good IMO. Its available now with the 1156 bracket and the quality of fitment is a good 9/10 IMO.
 
Soldato
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The megahalems beats the TRUE by a couple degrees, but I wouldn't say it would be worth buying one if you already own a TRUE, I would say this is money wasted tbh..

The TRUE does an excellent job at cooling, and like entireweb said, there really isn't much difference between them really..
 
Caporegime
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Having tried quite a few coolers on my previous q6600 clocked at 3.8ghz, the TRUE was way ahead at cooling that particular chip. The coolers i tried were.

nhu12p
thermolab baram
sunbeam ccf
titan fenrir
tuniq tower

All were used with the same sharkoon silent eagle 2000 rpm fan, all of them were quite a bit behind the TRUE on cooling performance.
 
Associate
Joined
2 Nov 2007
Posts
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Location
Munich, Germany
Having tried quite a few coolers on my previous q6600 clocked at 3.8ghz, the TRUE was way ahead at cooling that particular chip. The coolers i tried were.

nhu12p
thermolab baram
sunbeam ccf
titan fenrir
tuniq tower

All were used with the same sharkoon silent eagle 2000 rpm fan, all of them were quite a bit behind the TRUE on cooling performance.

That explains it then. Those golf ball nodules on the Sharkoon are producing pressure waves at exactly the same frequency as the gap in the fin of the TRUE. Thats why you get a DEGREE of cooling better than the other coolers. Read the wiki its true!
 
Soldato
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UK
Apparently the 1156 Bolt-thru kit for the TRUE is a few weeks away from being released, which is a rather pretty poor show from Thermalright I reckon...
 
Caporegime
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armoy, n. ireland
I wonder if theyll use a design similair to the new 1366 model, it definitely feels a lot more secure than the x shaped clamp version i had for s775, also makes removal a lot easier as you only remove 2 screws and leave the whole backplate assembly in place, without removing the motherboard.
 
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