CPU Cooler

[doron]

Hello everyone,

I'm trying to decide on a cpu cooler for my future build.
The CPU I'm planning on is the upcoming Phenom II 720 which is good when keeping price in mind.

I've looked into some forums / reviews and noticed that the Xigmatek s1283/s1284 series are good ones.
Unfortunately, I can't find them for sale anywhere and buying them from abroad costs about 15$ more shipping.

Therefore I was hoping you'd help me.

 

[revost1]

The XIGMATEK HDT-S1283 is pretty legit and works well. Dropped my temps by 12-15c on a Q6600 G0 @ 3.6ghz.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835233003

$36.99 + free shipping. Throw in some Arctic Silver 5 for $5.99 and you should be good to go.

 

[freelance]

doron, cooling wise, people also say Sunbeam Core Contact Freezer is good, allegedly even better than Xigmateks.

But if I may suggest - I guess you can try something that has a good ratio between noise/cooling - I'd suggest Akasa Nero AK967. Very close to Xigmatek performance and less noise, but remeber its not written in stone and have a look about fitting it to your mobo, no that there should be problems, just in case.

Freelance

 

[doron]

Revost - As much as I recall, Newegg only distributes to united states so it's irrelevant for me. Checked on Ebay and shipment for these stuff costs around 30$...

Regarding the Akasa brand, It sounds good and is also partially available. Weird that I couldn't find it on ebay / newegg to get an idea about pricing but it got some nice reviews. Thanks!

 

[freelance]

Revost - As much as I recall, Newegg only distributes to united states so it's irrelevant for me. Checked on Ebay and shipment for these stuff costs around 30$...

Regarding the Akasa brand, It sounds good and is also partially available. Weird that I couldn't find it on ebay / newegg to get an idea about pricing but it got some nice reviews. Thanks!

Well, it will depend where are you, eventually. In US only one of Akasa's parners (sidewinder) sells Nero - the price in US says 39.95USD. Just a sec, finding the link - click HERE.

Anyway, to cut the long story short, to get Akasa's reseller/partner in your country go to their website (www.akasa.com.tw) and click the tab "Where to Buy".

If your country is not there [ like in my case of a forgotten by everyone hole ] than I'm out of advise, well... travel and buy.

 

[freelance]

Forgot to mention one more super-well-known cooler - TRU or even better TRUE.

And also the most important thing - why I recommend these coolers. After many searches over last two years, I think the best site about coolers is Frostytech. They have a chart called Top 5 Heatsinks. Each heatsink has a review, both for AMD and Intel platforms, as well as noise measurements. See the chart at:
http://www.frostytech.com/top5heatsinks.cfm

On the same page you will see top 5 recommendations only for AMD.

I am "silence oriented" currently, that's why my Akasa recommendation. So I'll just mention something about sound there - sound measurements can initially scare you on Frostytech (40-60dB), but don't be concerned, these are simply done from closest possible distance. Hence, I, myself, compare these dB levels to my subjective perception of my Noctua NH-U12F. Noctuas' on Frostytech are about 40dB, while its near dead silent in my PC at full speed, so anything around that is superb. The only other thing to be careful is of course the temperature. Akasa that I recommended is rated at 39dB at high speed and has much better temperature results than Noctua.

But the choice is yours of course. Cheers.

 

[doron]

Found the reseller in my country, good news is it's my favourite shop, bad new is they only have 2 old Akasa coolers.. I'll see if they can order one for me, thanks anyway

One thing I've noticed on Frostytech, Nero seems to be compatible with Intel only! Please tell me there's a mistake there, as I was really counting on buying one :/

 

[freelance]

Found the reseller in my country, good news is it's my favourite shop, bad new is they only have 2 old Akasa coolers.. I'll see if they can order one for me, thanks anyway

One thing I've noticed on Frostytech, Nero seems to be compatible with Intel only! Please tell me there's a mistake there, as I was really counting on buying one :/

Sorry for late reply, two days conferencing. Its compatible with AMD as well - there are three indicators in the review on Frostytech:

1. Here is what you find next to Nero's first picture on Frostytech - Compatible with Sockets: 754/939/940/AM2, LGA775/1366
Have a look at that first page of the review, at first picture - here is the 1st review page:
http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=2354

2. Same review - on noise measurement page of Nero's review you can see t says Intel/AMD.

3. Same review, page 4 is dedicated to AMD platform only. Akasa Nero is place 10. Page 4:
http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=2354&page=4

Also, on Akasa's home page, going as follows AKASA-PRODUCTS-CPU COOLING-AMD PHENOM, Nero is the first cooler listed under AMD Phenom coolers. So, no problems, and just to be 101% sure, when opening Nero's own page here is the 1st info:
CPU Socket:
Intel LGA 775, LGA 1366
AMD Socket 939, AM2, AM2+

Final point about temps at Frostytech - sorry if I state things you know, just bear with me - take note that the temps on Frostytech are above ambient. In case of Akasa there were 15C above ambient - so, presumably, if you have 25 degrees Celsius in your room, add 15C more and that will mean that your CPU will be 40C, sorry for this simplifying approach, but just to be sure you don't get disappointed over final results.

 

[doron]

Well I really hope that It's not always gonna be room temp + 15 since in the summer we sometimes have 40 degrees or so.. Thanks for the heads up though =)

You don't have to apologyze as I really enjoyed reading this very informative reply, thanks alot!

 

[freelance]

Well I really hope that It's not always gonna be room temp + 15 since in the summer we sometimes have 40 degrees or so.. Thanks for the heads up though =)

You don't have to apologyze as I really enjoyed reading this very informative reply, thanks alot!

OK, you're welcome. No it won't. Btw, those temps at Frosty were at stress test (usually CPU + RAM running at 100% load or so through a "stress" soft) - your computer will not be stressed like that, so the temps would be lower. And... yeah, summer @40C or so is something I know. But my 4300@2,6 or sometimes @2,4GHz is hotter than the Phenom II 720 you are planning for and I am not that concerned even at 40C in summer (usually lowering to 2,4Ghz), so I wouldn't be concerned about the temps of your Phenom II 720 even in that environment. Good luck!