Third Party CPU Cooling that fits on a GA-X38-DQ6?

Hey guys,

With some delay I finally received a call earlier today confirming that I'll get my E8400 at my door by tomorrow after noon. That's the good part. But I have seen pictures of the stock Intel cooling solution that comes with it, and to be honest it looks like a very cheap and poorly efficient HSF (perhaps I'm entirely wrong and it actually does perform well?). I am planning to over-clock the heck out of that CPU so... I guess I'll need something better.

With that said, not all third party CPU cooling solutions are compatible with the GA-X38-DQ6 due to its integrated heat spreader design covering most of the north bridge and even some copper at the back of the board, which supposedly and certainly does make everything harder to secure firmly especially if it has push pins and stuff like that I'd presume.

Are there any KNOWN compatible and GOOD (not necessarily the very best though) third party CPU cooling solution for my GA-X38-DQ6 and an Intel S775 Dual-Core CPU? Something that will install WITHOUT the need of extra efforts other than using my bare hands? Please, if there are, I'd really appreciate to receive some recommendations.

Thanks!

Wow... hmmm...

Anything smaller and with a fan included? That's a little too big for my tastes, and I don't feel like having to pay for an extra fan to mount on top of those. As I said I'm not looking for the "very best there is", just something better than the stock cooling will do.

I see.

Well, alright I might consider one of those then. Aren't those huge coolers blowing up the heated up air onto the Memory modules?

I have the same board. It all depends on whether or not you want to remove the factory 'Crazycool' heatsink from the bottom of the board or not. Any of the bigger heatsinks require a lower mounting bracket for support that cannot be installed as long as the heatsink is there. That's the problem with the 2 listed above. They need the lower support. Gigabyte shows you how to remove it in the instructions for the board, but I've heard different opinions on removing it.
On mine, I put a OCZ Vendetta cooler http://www.frostytech.com/articlev [...] leID=2220. It uses the factory style push locks. The only problem I had was the cooling fan was right up against the RAM if I used the first slot. It seems to do an alright job, but I'm a little worried about cooling the area around the cpu, so I'll prob change it.

Scythe also makes decent coolers that use the push pin style clips

check this site out: http://www.frostytech.com/top5heatsinks.cfm

In the reviews, they show what hardware comes with the cooler.Also at the top of the page you can also do a review search by manfacturer.

Hope this helps

The top three CPU coolers on the market are: (1) Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme, (2) Tuniq Tower 120, (3) Zalman 9700. The Zalman 9700 being the loudest of the three because it uses a fan much smaller than a 120mm fan, smaller fans have to spin faster to keep up with the bigger fans that spin slower but push more air.

I think a found a combination of cooling solution that should be more affordable. What about the Thermalright SI-120 + a Scythe S-Flex SFF21E 120mm fan at 20.1dBA? Should that be compatible and be efficient enough?

By the way, I MIGHT try "big" over-clocks, but I won't leave my OC on 24/7. I will benchmark and play some while it is moderately OC'ed, but I won't do every day activities with it at "maximum stable over-clocks". I don't plan to do that, but yes I do plan on "moderately" over-clocking. By that I mean around 30% to 40% OC, but I don't think I'd go for more on a 24/7 usage basis.

I am aiming maybe for 3.6Ghz maximum for 24/7 operation, and later I will try 4.0Ghz but only for benchmarking and testing purposes.

Thanks for the support, everyone.

But I've decided to go with a cheaper OCZ Vendetta. All other solutions were, at minimum, around $30 more expensive, and even $10 extra above my budget would have simply break it. Maybe in a few months, especially when summer arrives, I might consider a better solution, but for now, tight budget forced me to stay on the cheaper side. I'm expecting the OCZ Vendetta to be at least "somewhat better" than the stock Intel cooler.

Heres a list to compare coolers.


By systemlord at 2007-12-29

The Vendetta is an improved version of the other two OCZ brands listed in the chart, so it should perform better then the two listed. I forgot to mention this in latter post.