Help purchasing a new CPU cooler ?

tylerrr

Distinguished
Feb 21, 2010
34
0
18,540
Well, the title pretty much says it all. I'm in the market for a new CPU cooler and am at a bit of a loss on which to choose. The ever-popular Evo 212 seems like it would be the most efficient but it's a freaking behemoth! I really don't like the form factor - because of that I went out and purchased a Noctua NH-L9i because the price was right (around $50) and it has a beautiful form factor with a top mounted fan.

http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=productview&products_id=50&lng=en

Unfortunately, after it arrived and I read through the documentation it's really only good for HTPC/Mini-ITX setups without beefy processors. Booo!

Caution: The NH-L9i is a highly-compact low-profile quiet cooler designed for use in small form factor cases and HTPC environments. While it provides first rate performance in its class, it is not suitable for overclocking and should be used with care on CPUs with more than 65W TDP (Thermal Design Power). Please consult our TDP guidelines to find out whether the NH-L9i is recommended for your CPU.

My max TDP is 77 so now I'm stuck with a crappy CPU cooler that I'm wary of installing, Evo 212 is out of stock at Amazon (and honestly it's fugly), and my dang computer keeps throttling itself because of the heat. Sooo I was hoping one of you kind souls might know some good alternatives that cost around the 50 dollar mark. As much as I like Noctua, I'm not paying $80-100 for their big daddy. I'd preferably like something with a smaller form factor, but that will still give good performance. I do not OC at all.

Thanks in advance.
T

 
Solution
i should have asked what kind of temps are you seeing under current use

there's a couple of good review / comparisons here on toms of the major coolers (thought i'd saved the url but can't find it) - use their search function - interesting, the Noctura U12S i went with didn't rank that far down from the "big boys" and ranked real high on quiet or low sound levels - and that proved accurate - you cannot hear it with the case cover off and your ear a few inches outside the case

it ran @ $63 shipped from amazon



i had a noctua NH-L9i on an i7-4790 (locked) cpu (84W TDP) in a SFF case and it really didn't do badly - i wish it'd had 4 heat pipes instead of two, and damn if noctua didn't just release almost the identical cooler with 4 heatpipes, but a 74mm height vs the 37 of the L9i. Re the L9i, on one tech page noctua describes the L9i as 65 watt rated, and on another indicates 95 watt rating, so they do confuse the user.

My cpu had been overheating with the stock cooler, running high 70s to high 80s, and when i first installed the L9i temps went down about 10C at full load, generally running high 60s to mid 70s while rendering video files, with one or two spikes to 79-81C during 45 minute to 1 hour rendering jobs.

I just yesterday moved my components into a larger case (aerocool DS CUBE) and went to a noctua NH-U12S (158mm height) cooler - 5 heatpipes and temps dropped another 10-14C - i'm now running low to mid 50s. The U12S is a quiet cooler and gave me no issues with tall ram on a micro-atx board but even if there had been, the fan can be moved upward to help with clearance issues.

here's a quick shot - i still need to clean up cable managment but

aerocool%202_zpsncg4kn0r.jpg


i moved my
 

tylerrr

Distinguished
Feb 21, 2010
34
0
18,540
Vertical motherboard setup, very nice. Do you guys think I should just install the L9i until the next one arrives ? It just worried me that it said my specs were over the top, but surely it must be better then the stock Intel cooler ? Thanks for all the suggestions. I was going to go with the T4 actually, but it has a much wider heatsink that would interfere with my tallish memory sticks. I appreciate the insight.
 
it depends on what you're going to be doing with the computer - hard core gaming, probably not with the L9i

my video rendering is or would be considered "medium" core, but still cpu sees 100% useage and recently for the first time, my memory useage has hit just south of 9GB and it served me in a SFF case up til a day ago

if you're on the cusp of overheating, with whatever you plan to do, you can always just leave the case cover off until the new cooler comes in. With a vertical motherboard (i'm assuming you meant you had one) and assuming you've got access to the bottom or back side of the mobo without having to remove it, changing out the cooler won't be a 10 minute affair
 

tylerrr

Distinguished
Feb 21, 2010
34
0
18,540
Thanks again, I was referring to your setup actually. I love the horizontal motherboard. (yes I mixed up vertical and horizontal because I'm an idiot :OP) Off topic - but I have a fast and beautiful horizontal motherboard ITX HTPC hackintosh myself - which is probably where the Noctua cooler will end up.

I'm not a 'hardcore' gamer, my current setup is a vertical MSI motherboard i5 3.0Gigahertz, 8GB Ram, 60GB SSD Boot Drive, 1TB Mechanical HD for storage, a 120GB SSD program drive, and a GTX 960. BUT Gaming is my primary use for this computer.

I am upgrading my APEX case (with only a single back exhaust fan) to a HAF 912 case with 2x 200mm fans and 2x 120mm fans (but I still need to move it over from the old case.) When I do the case move was when I was hoping to install the CPU cooler (this weekend). Just need to figure out which CPU cooler to buy from Frys....

Arctic Cooler 17 looks pretty nice. I might just end up going with that if the size is right. Anybody know how it compares to the Evo 212 ?
 
i should have asked what kind of temps are you seeing under current use

there's a couple of good review / comparisons here on toms of the major coolers (thought i'd saved the url but can't find it) - use their search function - interesting, the Noctura U12S i went with didn't rank that far down from the "big boys" and ranked real high on quiet or low sound levels - and that proved accurate - you cannot hear it with the case cover off and your ear a few inches outside the case

it ran @ $63 shipped from amazon
 
Solution

tylerrr

Distinguished
Feb 21, 2010
34
0
18,540
That's the one for me! Thanks for all the help. I wasn't seeing major temps spikes, because my CPU throttles itself down a bit when it starts to overheat. When I'd come back to windows after an extended gaming session I'd come back to "the performance on your computer was bad, so we changed the theme" thing. I know, so scientific. $63 is right in my price range and gives me those great Noctua fans, plus a good form factor. THANK YOU. If anyone is interested for scientific reasons at what temps i5s begin to throttle, I'll post back either tonight or tomorrow after some friday night gaming! Have a great weekend everyone.