Whats known as the best air CPU cooler?

Dark Rock Pro 3 is very nice, but you know its a pig to install when you're punching the air in victory just because you've managed to get a screw back thats fallen between the Fan and PSU :p
 
Thermalright Silver Arrow is usually considered the best but clearance can be an issue.

IMO the Antec 1250 (AIO water) does better than the list above would suggest but you need to get it setup right which out the box it isn't - but I have reservations about several other aspects of the cooler none the least the noise levels required to get the best out of it.

TBH any half decent tower cooler will be so close to any other that unless your shooting for world records and need that last 0.1% go for the one that you like the look of and doesn't have bad reviews.
 
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Silver Arrow is first generation. It was followed by Silver Arrow SB-E, Silver Arrow SB-E Extreme and now Silver Arrow IB-E & Silver Arrow IB-E Extreme. SA IB-E is 154.6mm wide, but is offset 9.5mm for better PCI-E slot clearance. From center of CPU to left side of cooler is 67.8mm and to the right side is 86.8mm.
SilverArrowIB-Edimedit_zpsc78dc4f9.jpg
 
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^^ I was meaning collectively as as you said theres not much difference performance wise between the different models.
 
With the current crop of cpus as they are any of the top end coolers are going to be similar, the cpu to ihs especially on intels is what hold back cooling performance
 
doyll said:
Have SA SB-E Extreme and a new SA IB-E too. Like them both but like the IB-E better.
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Any input on SB-E SE I've read a few reviews and fans are quieter than the SB-E. What is noise like on IB-E, quiter than SB-E? Also what do the extreme versions provide? Thanks
 
dacads said:
Any input on SB-E SE I've read a few reviews and fans are quieter than the SB-E. What is noise like on IB-E, quiter than SB-E? Also what do the extreme versions provide? Thanks
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  • Silver Arrow SB-E has a TY-150 fan rated 1100rpm @ 84cfm & a TY-141 fan rated 1300rpm 74cfm
  • Silver Arrow SB-E SE has 2x TY-145 fans rated 74cfm @ 1300rpm.
  • Silver Arrow SB-E Extreme has 2x TY-143 fans rated 130cfm @ 2500rpm.
    • TY-140, TY-141, TY-143, TY-145 & TY-147 all are 74cfm @ 1300rpm & 21dBA
    • But run TY-143 @ 2500rpm puts out 130cfm & 45dBA.. 4 times as loud
    • TY-150 is 84cfm @ 1100rpm & 34dBA.. more than 2 times as loud as TY-14x except for TY-143 which is 2 times as loud as TY-150
  • Silver Arrow IB-E has 2x TY-141 fans (74cfm @ 1300rpm & 25dBA (Think 25dBA is miss-print & should be 21dBA)
  • Silver Arrow IB-E Extreme has 2x TY-143 fans rated 130cfm @ 2500rpm

Hope that isn't too confusing.. because:
  • TY-140, TY-141, TY-143, TY-145 & TY-147 fans are 140mm
  • TY-150 fan is 150mm
  • TY-140, TY-145 & TY-147 are enhanced hyper-flow bearing (EHFB)
  • TY-141 & TY-143 are ball bearing.
  • TY-140, 143 & 147 all have same fan blade design
  • TY-141, 145 & TY-150 have a different blade design
  • TY-140 is gray-tan housing with gray-blue fan
  • TY-141 & TY-150 are different tan housing with gray fan
  • TY-145 & TY-147 are black housing with white fan
  • TY-143 is red housing with orange fan & 0.6 amp motor
But they are all PWM. :D
 
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Sorry, but the best CPU cooler is the Nofan CR-95. Totally silent and keeps the CPU in spec. You can't overclock, of course, but that's a small price to pay for blissful silence.
 
NoFan CR-95C is a monster. It is only 148mm tall BUT is 180mm in diameter with base offset to give PCI-E clearance, RAM must be less than 32mm tall, is only 4 single ended heat pipes that transfer heat into 160 "ice pipes" and doesn't cool any better than stock cooler. It is silent, but the rest of our "normal" systems are not, so what's the point? :D

As Hexus said at the end of their review:
Bottom line: If nothing but a dead-silent PC will do, the CR-95C IcePipe warrants a closer look, but you've got to be hell-bent on silence to consider a solution as outlandish as this.
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But would love to have one to put on the cooler trophy shelf. :D
 
Quartz said:
Sorry, but the best CPU cooler is the Nofan CR-95. Totally silent and keeps the CPU in spec. You can't overclock, of course, but that's a small price to pay for blissful silence.
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A pointless cooler really. If you can run a CPU passively, then any decent air cooler will do the same job without their bundled fans. High end CPUs can also be run passively but you need good airflow which means no silence. Again, in this situation, a high end air cooler can be used passively and will even allow you to overclock the CPU.

I used to test my i7 920 passively at 4GHz and with good airflow, all the high-end dual tower coolers and a few single tower coolers coped happily under stress and for prolonged periods. The Nofan holds no advantage over a high end air cooler where the latter is more flexible in how you can use it.
 
I see no reason K2, NH-D14, HR-22, Silver Arrow IB-E, etc wouldn't work. I know Cogage Arrow, Silver Arrow SB-E, TC14PE & Cryorig R1 will all passively cool my [email protected].. They do a better job is cooler is facing up instead of back. Makes sense as that give maximum convection airflow.
 
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