I5 2500K Stock cooler

[jake24a]

Are the heat sinks / coolers that come with the i5's good enough? Should i get something better?

 

[rolli59]

If you are planning a mild overclock or none it is but if you want to take it to the max it isn't!

 

[Snipergod87]

Depends on the purpose for normal every day no OC or small OC yes, for a heavy OC than no.

 

[Leaps-from-Shadows]

It's fine for stock speed, but I wouldn't overclock with it.

Get a $30 Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus. That cooler will take your CPU to its multiplier wall.

 

[dwarf10]

^ +1

 

[enzo matrix]

Are the heat sinks / coolers that come with the i5's good enough? Should i get something better?

Seems to me you have a consensus:

Intel sells their processors with those heatsinks because they are more than good enough. However, if you plan to increase heat beyond what it would be normally (eg, overclocking/overvolting) then the stock heatsink will not be sufficient.

 

[Bluescreendeath]

Overclocking to 4GHz with the stock cooler is easily doable - the new sandy bridge processors have an amazing TDP, running as cool as the 1156 i5 760s... (my estimate is that it's around 80-90w TDP)

 

[swimswithtrout]

Are the heat sinks / coolers that come with the i5's good enough? Should i get something better?

I know this is an old thread, but I'm dragging back up.

It's finally time to order my new parts, and I'm waffling on an upgraded cooler. At max , I'd only be attempting an OC of 4.0-4.4 for the sake of a 24/7/365 stable system.

The Hyper 212+ sounds appealing but I need to be able to install all 4 sticks of RAM on an AsRock Z68 Pro3

Will the big cooler block any slots ?

Ambient temp in my house can approach 85F/ 30C during the summer heat.

 

[bearclaw99]

I know this is an old thread, but I'm dragging back up.

It's finally time to order my new parts, and I'm waffling on an upgraded cooler. At max , I'd only be attempting an OC of 4.0-4.4 for the sake of a 24/7/365 stable system.

The Hyper 212+ sounds appealing but I need to be able to install all 4 sticks of RAM on an AsRock Z68 Pro3

Will the big cooler block any slots ?

Ambient temp in my house can approach 85F/ 30C during the summer heat.

Shouldn't block any slots. I had a CM 212+ before I switched to my Noctua and I was okay with all 4 slots filled on my ASRock Extreme 4 board

 

[Stranger1066]

I'm in the same boat. I have an old Zalman Flower. Don't have the right attachments to fit it to my new Motherboard (ASUS P8P67). Want to go to a baby watercooler at some point in the coming months and I'm umming and arring over whether or not to reuse my 4 year old Zalman fan, or use the stock fan till i get it.

I think I'll see how the stock fan does. I wont be over clocking it till I get all my new components and even then I will only do a medium overclock. Any opinions on which I should use?

p.s. Just Future proofing my computer and don't want to have to buy new RAM, CPU cooler, or PSU in near future. I expect to replace Processor, SSD and Graphics cars in 18 months with newer better models (or crossfire my GC)

------------------------

i5 2500k, ASUS P8P67, Antec 900 case, Corsair TX 750w, Sapphire 1gb HD6870, 120gb OCZ Vertex 2, 2x 1tb Samsung F3 HDD, Corsair 8gb 1866mhz

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

The stock HSF (heatsink/fan) is just fine for the normal speed and temperatures that would be expected from the Intel® Core™ i5-2500K but once you start to overclock you really need to replace it with something that is better able to keep the processor cool.

Christian Wood
Intel Enthusiast Team

 

[vp9]

can you please tell me ,what if the only consideration is noise level? is it better to get a cooler with bigger fan running at lower RPM? is the stock cooler noticably louder compared to those with bigger fan?
thanks ,Ken

 

[Wampbit]

I voted no on the bases of you talking about the 2500k. Were it the 2500 -> no overclock, I'd say it was good enough, the chip produces shockingly little heat. However, it will not cut it for an overclock. If you're just moderately overclocking (4.5Ghz or so), a CM Hyper 212+ will do the job. If you want to really play around with the overclocking you need to get a well reviewed high end heatsink.

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

There really are a couple of things that play into the noise level from your computer. The HSF (heatsink/fan) is one of them, along with the chassis and the HDD. For the best results look for chassis that are thermal advantage. They are tested to maintain a certain temp and because of this the HSF doesn’t have to work as hard. Important note that the number of fans that a case has doesnt mean that it is going to be any more quite. A SSD is another very nice way to make a difference on noise levels.


Christian Wood
Intel Enthusiast Team

 

[vitaminc]

Just FYI:

From my personal experience of running i5-2500K with ASRock H67M-ITX motherboard and 2x4G of memory, the stock HSF is barely enough to cover stock speeds at full load. And it is the first stock HSF I've used since the original Pentium days more than a decade ago.

Temperature under full load IBT/Prime95 goes as high as 94c at 35c ambient and 17c room. But my guess its part due to the ITX case (Lian Li PC-Q11) thermal design that I will fix.

It's obnoxiously loud even at low fan speeds.

Maybe I will try to reseat the HSF with better thermal compound. Or just bite the bullet and get the Scythe Kozuti.

 

[synthaside]

I'd reccomend getting one of the all in one water cooling kits , if your after a decent cooler for not to much money .. they start at about 30-40 quid and are pretty small as the main radiator replaces the old case exhaust fan

I've just whacked a h60 on my 945 in a new asus 990Evo
when my m2nsli died (Rip you wonderful mainboard ) after putting up with 5 years of torture in a coolermaster silenceio.

WOW what a differnce i'd gotten used to the nuclear turbine noise from my antech 900 (1st ed) with all the fans on HIGH now the loudest noise in the room is the old secondary WD 5000RPM hard disk ... occasionally seeking.

 

[Guest]

i have the coolermaster hyper 212 evo which i believe is similar to the hyper 212 +, and it does not block the slots for the ram, the nice thing with these heatsinks is that the fan attaches to them using a plastic clip/bracket. it can be slid up and down on the heatsink. on mine i slid it up slightly so that the fan is just above my ram. there is also the option of using the fan as a tractor to pull air off of the heatsink by mounting it to the backside, rather than a pusher and having it on the front side.

 

[Guest]

right now my core temps are right around 34c while redownloading battlefield 3 (legally of course). once i get it installed and start playing online ill let you know the temps im getting with this coolermaster hyper 212 evo heatsink when she is under load. also im not sure if this is relavant but i have a fan speed controller in my rig and when im gaming i max out all my fan speeds. as for the motherboard i am using it is the gigabyte Z68XP-UD3