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Five ‘cool’ CPU coolers
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Dan C
Honorary Master
I hate all those BIG coolers 
Currently got a low profile Thermaltake that runs at 1600 rpm and seems to do the job well enough. Ok it does suffer a bit under prime95 with all 6 cores 100%, about 58-60c after 30 minutes ... eish. Idle normally about 22 degrees.
Currently got a low profile Thermaltake that runs at 1600 rpm and seems to do the job well enough. Ok it does suffer a bit under prime95 with all 6 cores 100%, about 58-60c after 30 minutes ... eish. Idle normally about 22 degrees.
Last edited:
LCBXX
Honorary Master
Eh...oookay 
I hate all those BIG coolers
Currently got a low profile Thermaltake that runs at 1600 rpm and seems to do the job well enough. Ok it does suffer a bit under prime95 with all 6 cores 100%, about 58-60c after 30 minutes ... eish. Idle normally about 22 degrees.
Where on earth are you guys testing your pc temps? In Antarctica? I have never (in all my years building custom spec PC's) ever seen a cpu temp so low, hell my i7 860 idles on about 37 and max at 55, but yet I live in durban, so maybe its the humidity here? I don't know, but I only wish I could get my cpu down to 22 idle. I don't have a stock cooler, can't remember the name and I'm not at home (using my phone), so I am unable to inform you of the name of my cooler, although it is from zalman. Also got plenty of air flow through my case.
bullzeye.za
Expert Member
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I hate all those BIG coolers
Currently got a low profile Thermaltake that runs at 1600 rpm and seems to do the job well enough. Ok it does suffer a bit under prime95 with all 6 cores 100%, about 58-60c after 30 minutes ... eish. Idle normally about 22 degrees.
Gotta call bull here. It's not possible for a pc to idle at below ambient temperature, I'd say ambient + 5 is a damned impressive feat - So 22 might be possible on colder days, but that's hardly "normal"
Screenshots to dissuade the naysayers?
nanonyous
Expert Member
It's possible for more modern, lower power consumption processors to idle at ambient if there's exceptional airflow and/or no hot-air current from the psu or gpu pulling over the procesor's HSF assembly.
Derrick, you didn't talk about motherboard flex. That's five articles.
This article does nothing but showcase a few HSF products; it doesn't go on to talk about their relative price/performance nor how their specific designs might impact case design for airflow and otherwise, nor about the dangers of large, heavy heatsinks when it comes to transportation for LANs (which 'gamers' are so apt to attend). Keep in mind that there might be kids that see these big, flashy heatsinks and immediately go out to beg their parents to get them one, not knowing the complications surrounding utilizing such a thing, only to have their computer completely up and die in a year or two thanks to the heatsink.
snobee
Expert Member
I spent ages at the beginning of the year deciding what cooler to settle with when I bought my new system. Basically it was either the Noctua D14, Coolermaster V10, or the Corsair H70. My two main issus were noise level and cooling as I knew I was going to do a bit of overclocking. Finally, mainly due to youtube testing vids I settled with the Noctua as the best option for me. My system is very quite, and even with my 980EX overclocked to 4GHz I have seen some of the cores sometimes on 17 degrees C (apparently - I never how accurate these testers are). When running various games, I don't recall it going above the low 50's, and then with a nice solid quite Antec case, the noise levels are hardly noticeable.
nanonyous
Expert Member
Whatever you're using to measure your temperatures is broken, or you were running that computer in an insanely cold room when you got the 17c measurement, snobee. When not dealing with an ambient temperature about as cold as that, you need to be employing phase change cooling or similar somewhere in your cooling pipeline, or you're simply not going to be getting below ambient.