What HSF to cool my 3570K

4745454b

Titan
Moderator
Specs are in profile, but to sum up I have a Gigabyte z77-UD4H, 3570K at stock, G.skill ripjaw 2x8GB and a HAF XM. No extra fans in the case. Yet. My current HSF is the 212+. I've been happy with it during my C2D and i5-750 usage, but the 3570K gets hotter then I'd like. Bios reports 45idle, and ~55load. For some reason Easy Tuner 6 (ET6) reports both about 10c lower. While below the bad point, I'd like something that cools better. Looking on Newegg I noticed that the Noctua coolers are on sale. Specifically I noticed the NH-D14 is down to $80 with free shipping.

Because I don't pay a lot of attention to cooling I come to you guys who do. What is a good cooler these days that can cool better then the 212+? I did read the OCing article Toms just did and the NH-U14S they semi suggest from that article is A) not available on newegg at the moment I write this, and B) only $4 cheaper. From what I see the NH-U14S is around half the NH-D14 so the D14 for $4 more is very worth it. I'm open to other coolers as well. Not sold on the AIO "water" coolers though if one has a nice price/performance ratio I'd consider. Money isn't something I'm worried about right now, but not looking to go full water or spend much more then the D14.
 
Solution
i use hyper X idle 33C full 47C .. i5 3570k + gigabyte Z77 D3H .. and not use the ET6 , i love old soft temp like AIDA64 /realtemp and still trush , and till now still ran default no OC .. maybe in nextime i need learn this pottential OC .. just sharing :)
Well depending on how many fans if any you have in your case could be the problem. If you do not have proper cooling in the case to pull the hot air out the CPU fan can't do a lont on its own. The 212+ is really a good CPU heatsink/fan so proper cooling in the case is where I would be looking at. Also 55c load is not that bad at all on air cooling really.
 

4745454b

Titan
Moderator
The HAF XM has a front intake 200mm fan, and a top 200MM "blowhole" fan. It also has a 120mm fan blowing out the back at the top. (Might be a 140, not sure.) Airflow shouldn't be an issue. I know the 212+ does a great job for the money which is why I got it in the first place. But I just don't like my idle. And not sure which program to believe. (Or why ET6 says temps 10c cooler.) I think I might have an install issue on the 212+ as well, but really just looking for something better.
 

4745454b

Titan
Moderator
Thanks Heny. I ran realtemp, it says 40C. Which is more or less what ET6 says. I've never seen the bios report lower then 45C. Not totally sure I need this, but I've got the cash to burn and thought maybe getting a really high end heatsink would be nice.
 
Your idle temp is largely dictated by ambient air temperature, don't expect to see too big a drop if you move to a bigger heatsink. My custom water-loop gets 40°C idle temps if its a 30°C day. For a 212+, I'm guessing ambient is about 25°C?

The NH-D14 is about the best air heatsink you can get, with a few other contenders like the Phanteks PH-TC14PE there as well. Unless you care about imperative performance, only difference will be aesthetics, which admittedly is a concern with the Noctua :lol:.
You can also get better temps by sticking aftermarket fans on the heatsinks, I know SR-71 has gotten good results on that Phanteks heatsink with Scythe Ultra Kaze fans.

I use a program called Core Temp to monitor my CPU. The 10°C delta your seeing could be the difference between CPU temperature and an average Core temperature. The CPU temp is based off a sensor built into the CPU socket, while Core is the temp of the actual CPU cores. Its not unusual for their to be a 10°C difference between them.
Go by Core temps, which is a better representation of how hot the chip is actually running.
 
Your Core0, Core1 and all that are your Core temps. I would go off those as the best representation of how hot its actually running.

I moved to water a while ago, and have always been of the opinion that mid-range air-cooling isnt worth buying so I don't know much about heatsinks lower than the top end or higher than the 212+ you already have.
 

4745454b

Titan
Moderator
Nope. In an attempt to fix my mouse glitch I'm already running the newest bios. There have only been three, the stock F1 bios, and the newest one that I'm running, F2H?

Man, a bit sad about this. Guess I'll keep my 212+ unless someone chimes in with something. Guess I'll get my new PSU as I want a gold rated one. And one more to my needed power draw. But I think I know I'm getting. Might go for the 450 or 500W unit, but this one has caught my eye. (I need a lot of SATA plugs. I'm a media hound...)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182068
 

thequn

Distinguished
Nov 4, 2012
393
0
18,810
I have the nocn hd-14 and an evo in back up computers idle temps are about the same within 1,2 degrees. The difference is in game, and testing, overclocking where the noc is better and moving the heat away, so the only thing you can do to lower idle temps is go water cooling, or find away to duct you air con to you, cpu, LOL I also have to agree with manocaluk about using a core temp style reader I use it for every system that allows and i don't pay attention to the temp gauge on the bios.
 
Plus, the BIOS temp isn't really indicative of any useful temp. To a point its not even an idle temp, as far as I'm aware the BIOS is run off a chipset on the motherboard, the CPU is receiving power and that's about it.
Basically a bigger/better heatsink will only really affect your load temps, unless you go all out and get something like custom water that has better Delta's (difference between ambient and idle/load temps). A decent air-cooler would be getting roughly 15°C idle delta's, my loop gets about 10°C.