Cooling recomendations

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ludothegreat

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Sep 14, 2005
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I built a new rig a while back and decided to go with Gigabyte's GA-MA779-UD3 motherboard and a AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition. The combo has worked very well for me, but I have noticed that the temps are usually around 50C at idol and 55C+ under load. These temps are a lot higher than I would like, so I have decided to upgrade my heatsink and do some major revamping of the fans within the case. Problem is I have no idea what is out there on the market and what will work with my hardware.

I see everyone raving about the new Ture Spirit 1366. I understand that it for socket 1366 mobos, but have seen some mention of it being used with Phenom II X4's. Is this possible? I have also found a couple other heatsinks that look like they would work well but I have no clue what will work for me and what will not.

I guess I am looking for what you guys recommend as the best cooling option for my AM2+/AM2/AM3 CPU. I am working inside a LIAN LI Lancool PC-K58 case and have a decent amount of room inside to work with, budget is around $100, and water cooling IS also an option.
 
For pure bang for the buck the Cooler Master Hyper 212+ does well and runs about $30. You can add a second fan if you want to improve it further. I just installed one on my i7 860 and it let me get from 2.8GHz to a stable 3.9GHz without cracking 90C (shutdown temp on an i7 is 99C). Just make sure you apply thermal compound correctly, which took some trial and error on my part. My thread here.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1553090

I ended up putting a nice fan pushing it uncontrolled and the included fan pulling and using the CPU throttle. The included fan works well enough but is a little noisy. If you've got the budget a good watercooling system would certainly be better, but for $30 it's hard to beat.
 
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Thanks for the suggestion. That Cooler Master looks to be quite popular. It is definitely one that I am considering.
 
I built a used GPU/CPU loop for about 115 shipped. if you skip the GPU block and bargain hunt a bit more you could shave off about 20$ or so.

For your case however i dont think its possible to squeeze in a radiator somewhere. Easier, and cheaper to go air. And theres always the possibility that you have a dud chip that wont go above a certain frequency no matter how many volts you dump into her.
 
thermalright sells bolt through kits that will work with the true spirit, the compatibility list for iit should read any combination of TRUE/120/ultra/venomous-x/HR series/ultima-90. they run ~$10, but that still comes out a bit cheaper than the other high-end single towers after you include the price of fans (for almost the same or better performance I still consider it a great deal).
 
Anyone have experince with the Noctua NH-C12P SE14? I have seen it mentioned a couple of times, but did not want to throw down the cash for it if it is not worth it. Can I get the same or better preformance from say the Cool master 212 or true spirit?
 
performance out of the three you just mentioned; true spirit > hyper 212+ > nh-c12p
 
I own the C12P and I can tell you that it can't beat giant tower heatsinks in CPU temps, but it will actively cool your RAM and northbridge as well, which the towers will not. Some of the price premium you pay goes towards the high quality silent fan with a super long lifespan, really nice instructions for AMD and Intel, and a flawless installation procedure.

If you are considering Hyper212+, and also considering Noctua, why not think about the U12 SE14? It is a nice tower style cooler with push pull out of the box.
 
Bootleg Usher said:
I own the C12P and I can tell you that it can't beat giant tower heatsinks in CPU temps, but it will actively cool your RAM and northbridge as well, which the towers will not. Some of the price premium you pay goes towards the high quality silent fan with a super long lifespan, really nice instructions for AMD and Intel, and a flawless installation procedure.

If you are considering Hyper212+, and also considering Noctua, why not think about the U12 SE14? It is a nice tower style cooler with push pull out of the box.
Click to expand...

I'm open for all possibilities. Do you have a link to the U12 SE14? I'm not finding anything on it.
 
Don't forget to measure your case's dimensions for heatsink clearance. I almost bought a 212, or U12 about 6 months ago, but was about 8mm short of it working in my case (Chieftec Mesh full tower) due to a case fan being directly over the CPU area. I eventually settled on a Noctua C12P, and put a 130 CFM NMB pwm-based fan on it. I haven't pushed the 1090T yet, but in a 77F room I hit 41C max. After that the fan spins up a little more, it becomes audible, and I can watch temps drop. If the fan runs at 100%, then I hit about 35C under load. The stock 140mm fan it came with was dead silent for me, and handily beat a Zalman 9700 @ 100% fan speed. The heatsink is almost like a lay-down tower, as it can easily take a 120mm fan. It's also lower profile, and puts less torque on the socket because of that. The other benefit is air being moved around the chipset and RAM (if you have Gskill Rip jaws or similar height you're fine, but remove the spine heatsinks on Corsair Dominator), Just some food for thought.
 
I really like the C12P, but want make sure I don't spend $60 on something when I can get the same or better performance from something for a different price. I'm not too worried about the cost, but the price per performance.
 
Thanks, I was actually able to find it at svc.com too. Really nice looking heat sink. Thanks for the link!
 
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