Help with choice of 760 cooler

[omnislip]

Ive narrowed my search down to the Titan Fenrir Evo, the Thermaltake Frio, the Scythe Mugen v2 Rev.B and the Akasa Venom. Which one is the best?

Im using an MSI P55-GD65 motherboard, and Corsair Dominator RAM (it was the only type in stock ). Therefore I will need to be certain that there will be no problems fitting the heatsink around the RAM. I'm afraid of the Scythe cooler in particular causing this problem, but I'm not certain of this nor of the others.

I intend to overclock my i5 760 to 4-ish Ghz, and this is in an Antec 902 case (not the widest, I know...)

Thanks very much for any advice,
Jonny.

PS: any recommendations for TIM would be great as well.

 

[davcon]

As long as you only have two dimms filled at the moment you'll be fine with Dominator ram it's 52mm tall.
The Mugen would be troublesome with your ram.
Out of the units you listed i would buy the Titan or a Corsair A70 if you can source one.
Btw the A70 retails for @$50 in N.A. so keep that in mind.
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1389/6/
Worse case scenario with the Dominators and all dimms filled is you would have to remove the heat spreader on the closest dimm.
Btw i have the same ram all dimms filled and a TR MUX-120 and no dimm clearance issues everything fits perfectly.
However i don't oc my cpu so i'm not recommending the cooler for a 4Ghz setting.
I also have a 902 and the MUX-120 is 160mm tall and fits with little room to spare.
I think you can rule out the FRIO it's 165mm tall and loud.
Some other good units.
Noctua NH-U12P SE2 former flagship model before D14-£48.53inc. vat
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/147097
Corsair Cooling Air Series A70 -£44.47inc. vat
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/226440
The Noctua will come with very good tim not too sure about Corsair's though.
Tuniq TX3 High Performance Thermal Grease -£5.61inc. vat
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/169201
Tuniq TX2 High Performance Thermal Grease-£4.08inc. vat this stuff is very good for the price.
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/169203
Arctic Cooling MX-2-£4.74inc. vat
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/135613

 

[abully]

go for noctua nh-d14...... the RAM would clear and would fit in the case too..... its one of the best air coolers you can have (the differential between the top coolers is only a few degrees).........

 

[omnislip]

go for noctua nh-d14...... the RAM would clear and would fit in the case too..... its one of the best air coolers you can have (the differential between the top coolers is only a few degrees).........

How are you meant to be able to tell this? The cooler itself is MASSIVE compared to all the others, so I was worried it might not even fit inside the case, let alone over the RAM etc.

 

[abully]

@Omnislip - the antec 902 is 220mm in width. minus 15mm for mobo+CPU offset. minus 25-35mm for the side plate and mobo tray. that gives you 170-180mm space; enough to fit the 160mm high noctua nh-d14.

For clarification on RAM clearance, check this link
http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=compatibility_ram_gen&products_id=34&lng=en

hope it helps

 

[saint19]

Hi Omnislip and welcome to Tom's forum.

1- I'd ask 1st what is ur budget?
2- From those options I'd go with the Thermaltake Frio
3- For TIM get the MX-3 or TX-3.

 

[omnislip]

Anyone know anything about the Cooler Master V6 GT? I know it looks a bit naff but for the price and performance it's niiiiiice.

Also, when the Corsair Dominator heatsinks are removed, are the RAM modules the same height as any other?

Thanks again for all the help.

 

[saint19]

The V6 GT is very good too and if u have the budget for that is a very solid option.

All the RAM modules should has the same height and remove the fan RAM without problems since those fan don't give u any advantage.

 

[dhongkool1]

no promilatech megahalems?
the v6 gt i don't really like cuz it has a bad price vs performance ratio
and the temps aren't as good as the meghalems or TRUE
it's better than the fenir though if i remember correctly

 

[omnislip]

Meghalems + 1 or 2 fans is definately more expensive than the v6 GT (at least over here in the UK) and http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/34658-cooler-master-v6-gt-cpu-cooler-review-12.html would seem to say the opposite of what you claim <.< Also this one looks a hell of a lot better than the meghalems

Also saint these are just some small heatsinks that come bundled, not any fans. (sorry for bad typo earlier)

 

[dhongkool1]

im not sure what other ppl think but i think that link is pretty BS
if you care about looks, go for it
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=544&Itemid=62&limit=1&limitstart=11

 

[dhongkool1]

never base your selection on 1 review
i think they ran that test with 1 fan on the megahalems which doesn't work well

 

[dhongkool1]

and to answer your question about the heatsinks
yeah if you remove it it's fine

 

[omnislip]

Then again if you look at http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=544&Itemid=62&limit=1&limitstart=10 it looks pretty promising. Furthermore the V6 GT costs £42 over here, whereas the Megahalems costs £40 fanless, and it would cost another £11 (!!!!!) for the black version. Then + £7 for one fan... Why would you even want to swap out the V6 GT fans when they perform so well anyway? There are too few good V6 GT reviews out at the moment. Both of these coolers will run the 4GHz overclock, so I guess it comes down to noise, price and taste in design...

 

[dhongkool1]

actually? it costs that much in britain?
in total, my megahalems over here costed around 70 bucks canadian and the v6 gt costed 70
read that link again and you'll realize that in the link i sent you, the prom and v6 are both using 1 fan
in your link, the v6 is using 2 stock fans, the prom is using 1 fan

 

[saint19]

Someone here didn't read the conclusion.

With that being said, this new heatsink is truly worthy of your attention and should be on your short list. For its ability to cool with the best of them we award the Cooler Master V6 GT our Dam Good award. The fact that its forward thinking heatpipe design is partly responsible for this we also award the V6 GT our Dam Innovative award. This really is an impressive product in nearly every way.

 

[omnislip]

@saint19 he meant that he doesnt believe in the integrity of the website, and maybe that their results aren't correct enough (I think)

@dhongkool1 For sure, but you can see in the hardwarecanucks review shows that the stock fans on the GT v6 are better than two aftermarket ones which they put on the heatsink. One might think, then, that the fans supplied are of a very very high quality (or maybe just spinning REALLY fast...) And even with a dual setup on the Megahalems the GT v6 beats it with the stock fans. I guess the GT v6 fans must just be really fast though, as it loses using the same aftermarket fans as the Megahalems, although by one, tiny, measly degree celcius/centigrade.

 

[dhongkool1]

i didn't say it was bad i just said it wasn't as good as this guy thought it was

 

[dhongkool1]

the v6 gt is still a great cooler
i just like the mega better
probably because i have it

 

[saint19]

@saint19 he meant that he doesnt believe in the integrity of the website, and maybe that their results aren't correct enough (I think)

It's not the only review of the V6 GT: see here and here those are very good sites.

 

[omnislip]

It's not the only review of the V6 GT: see here and here those are very good sites.

I agree with you but I suppose that one might think that these are less useful because they do not contain a wide enough range of coolers e.g. the Megahalems.

 

[saint19]

Your are right also keep in mind that those temps are with different ambient temps, cases and components that yours so the results can be different.

 

[dhongkool1]

^
true
i find it funny how the v6 is smaller than the v10 yet it has better performance

 

[saint19]

The V8 and V10 aren't the best coolers, even the Hyper 212+ ($30) performs better that the V8 in some test.

 

[dhongkool1]

what is the best coolermaster cooler then?
v6 gt?
cuz the v10 is surely more expensive than the v6 gt