Good upgrade from hyper 212 evo under $100

Ger Geverola · Mar 28, 2015

Hi guys! I am fairly new to the forums and I am looking for an upgrade cpu cooler from a hyper 212 evo. Budget is below $100. Aside from the usual suggestions (nh d14, phanteks cooler, dark rock 3, liquid AIO's,etc), are there any nice coolers that are a bit stylish in a way? I have a i5 4690k in a blue/white phantom 410.

I was looking at these Coolers as they seem nice and cheap :

V3 components voltair (it looks sexy and the technology is quite interesting)

http://m.tigerdirect.com/products/9162912

Xigmatek prime ds 1484 (because its cheap in Amazon and it has 140mm fan mount, might be a nice and cheap upgrade? )

, Any thoughts?

Elemential · Mar 28, 2015

The h100i?

Ger Geverola · Mar 28, 2015

I considered that h100i , but it would go above my budget with tax and I think it is kind of over kill for my needs as Im not really a heavy OC'er. It IS a very awesome cooler though.

synphul · Mar 28, 2015

The phanteks coolers come in other colors. Unfortunately the reason the noctua and phanteks and rest of the typical coolers are mentioned is for their performance. They're pretty much the same concept, a dual tower cooler with heatpipes and 2-3 fans. Afraid you go getting too cheap or 'stylish' with an air cooler and it will affect performance.

There's the cryorig h5, but again it's a tower style cooler. I like the dark rock 3 looks, I have the pro 3 in my pc and to me it looks nice but looks are subjective to the user. That cooler you linked to isn't a horrible cooler and it's not bad for $60. At full price it's a bit overpriced. Here's a review done by tweaktown with benchmarks. It pretty much holds it's own with decent air coolers so the tec cooling portion of it may be a bit gimmicky. Keep in mind even though it scored a bit low it's also based on full retail vs cooling value.

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/6487/v3-voltair-high-performance-thermoelectric-cpu-cooler-review/index7.html

If you notice the scythe mugen 4 keeps pace with it pretty much under overclocked conditions but right now with it being on sale it's only $10 or so more than the mugen 4 is on amazon.

Edit: Keep in mind that price has a lot to do with it. While I have the dark rock pro 3, like the looks and it cools well I also found it worthwhile when it was on sale for $55. At the usual price of $90, the performance just doesn't justify the cost. Same thing with that voltair cooler, it's pretty good for the sale price. Definitely wouldn't consider it at $120.

photonboy · Mar 28, 2015

CM Seidon 120M liquid cooler.
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/cooler-master-cpu-cooler-rls12m24pkr1

The i5-4690K doesn't require a really expensive cooler. In fact, my advice would be to not mess with the voltage at all and just set the multiplier manually to 42 or 43 (whatever is stable). XMP first for memory. Overclocking to 4.6GHz for example doesn't generally benefit much or at all for gaming vs 4.2GHz.

Use the Intel diagnostics tool: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/19792/Intel-Processor-Diagnostic-Tool-64-bit-

Calculatron · Mar 28, 2015

Take a look at the Zalman CNPS12X. It's a top-tier air cooler that competes with the NH-D14 and Phanteks PH-TC14PE. I think it has blue LEDs, and has this nice nickel-plating that sure is purdy.

Ger Geverola · Mar 28, 2015

synphul :

reason why i asked to exclude the more common suggestions was because i wanted to expand my options . the phanteks and daark rock 3 coolers are at the top of my list atm.

the cryorig h5 looks sexy. i will look into that .what do you mean by "tower" style cooler? i dont mind it being a heatsink or a AIO liquid cooler , as long as its not displeasing to look at like the nh d14.

i dont mind sacrifing a bit of performance for looks but not so much that it crippes performance

synphul · Mar 28, 2015

Tower style are the type of cooler. The 'top' of the tower is what faces the side of the case since the motherboard is on its' side. Essentially a single tower with a fan (sometimes 2) like the cryorig h5, h7, cm hyper 212 evo, tx4 etc - they have 1 tower consisting of heatpipes surrounded by cooling fins. Coolers like the dark rock 3, pro 3, nh-d14, nh-d15, cryorig r1 universal etc are 'dual tower' because if you look at them, they have a fan, a row of cooling fins, a fan in the middle, another row of cooling fins and heatpipes (and sometimes a 3rd fan).

Unlike low profile 'flower' shaped coolers like many of zalman's, the cryorig c1 etc. which are more suited toward thinner cases, mitx, itx and so forth.

Overclocking value is more or less up to the user. Many 4690k's reach 4.6-4.7ghz. While it's possible to go for a more mild overclock like 4.2, keep in mind the turbo setting out of the box is 3.9ghz. Not sure why 4.2 to 4.6 ghz would be little improvement (400mhz increase) compared to 4.2ghz (300mhz over stock turbo). 400mhz doesn't sound like a lot and in comparison to frequencies of 3.5-4.0 it isn't relatively huge. Although if your cpu is busy working, 400mhz across 4 cores is an additional 1.2ghz combined processing power.

Any of those coolers you're looking at should be capable of reaching the cpu's physical oc potential. Unless you have really high ambient temps, they usually cap out at voltage before temperature. The 212 evo for it's cost and size is a good performer, just not quite enough to handle load temps much beyond 4.2 or 4.3 in most cases.

It's always a roll of the dice with the cpu binning, for my chip the sweet spot is 4.6ghz. I can reach 4.7 and stay within thermals but the voltage needs to be raised to a point I'm not comfortable with for full time use. Some (very few) people have trouble getting to 4.5ghz, I've seen others reach 4.7, 4.8 ghz at the top end. Just don't be disappointed if you don't get that high, 4.8 doesn't really seem to be the norm either.

Ger Geverola · Mar 28, 2015

synphul :

Tower style are the type of cooler. The 'top' of the tower is what faces the side of the case since the motherboard is on its' side. Essentially a single tower with a fan (sometimes 2) like the cryorig h5, h7, cm hyper 212 evo, tx4 etc - they have 1 tower consisting of heatpipes surrounded by cooling fins. Coolers like the dark rock 3, pro 3, nh-d14, nh-d15, cryorig r1 universal etc are 'dual tower' because if you look at them, they have a fan, a row of cooling fins, a fan in the middle, another row of cooling fins and heatpipes (and sometimes a 3rd fan).

Unlike low profile 'flower' shaped coolers like many of zalman's, the cryorig c1 etc. which are more suited toward thinner cases, mitx, itx and so forth.

Overclocking value is more or less up to the user. Many 4690k's reach 4.6-4.7ghz. While it's possible to go for a more mild overclock like 4.2, keep in mind the turbo setting out of the box is 3.9ghz. Not sure why 4.2 to 4.6 ghz would be little improvement (400mhz increase) compared to 4.2ghz (300mhz over stock turbo). 400mhz doesn't sound like a lot and in comparison to frequencies of 3.5-4.0 it isn't relatively huge. Although if your cpu is busy working, 400mhz across 4 cores is an additional 1.2ghz combined processing power.

Any of those coolers you're looking at should be capable of reaching the cpu's physical oc potential. Unless you have really high ambient temps, they usually cap out at voltage before temperature. The 212 evo for it's cost and size is a good performer, just not quite enough to handle load temps much beyond 4.2 or 4.3 in most cases.

It's always a roll of the dice with the cpu binning, for my chip the sweet spot is 4.6ghz. I can reach 4.7 and stay within thermals but the voltage needs to be raised to a point I'm not comfortable with for full time use. Some (very few) people have trouble getting to 4.5ghz, I've seen others reach 4.7, 4.8 ghz at the top end. Just don't be disappointed if you don't get that high, 4.8 doesn't really seem to be the norm either.

i see what you mean. currently on my i5 4690k and hyper 212 evo i can hit 4.4ghz with pretty ok temps that average at 60-65 degrees on aida64. it does hit 70-73 on prime95. i will be having the same overclock though on my new cooler , i just hate having to hit 70+ =\ OCD kicking in

Ger Geverola · Mar 28, 2015

photonboy :

LOL i accidentally clicked on the pick answer button fml. but anyways i already did mess with my voltage , i have mine at 1.190 @ 4.4 ghz. stable so far

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