Cant choose a air CPU cooler

[Priv]

Basicly, answer the poll, I really cannot decide, the V8 looks awesome but has a bit less performance, the TRUE and Tuniq Tower speak for them selves. And the others also have had good reviews. Please help me, I think my head will explode because they are all high performing!

 

[col-p-todd]

I would go for a Zalman 9700NT

 

[aevm]

I would go for the Noctua. It matches the Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme in performance and beats all the rest. It's quieter than all the rest. Unfortunately, the price is huge, but you said it was free Another disadvantage is that it's big, but so are the others.

Make sure whatever cooler you pick actually fits on your motherboard and in your case.

Since you added the Tuniq Tower to the poll, you might as well add the Sunbeam Core Contact too, i.e. Tuniq's new and improved version..

Edit: actually, the best air cooler I know of is a combination of Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme and two of the fans used in the Noctua NH-U12P. You can buy the fans separately (they're called NH-U12F). That combo costs about $100.

 

[one-shot]

Price/Performance I'm leaning towards the Xigmatech. Everything else may be a few degrees C less but also cost more. Basically it's not going to make much of a difference in a few years if your CPU is 2 degrees warmer than one costing $20<. It's your money and the beauty is getting to choose what you want.

 

[Homeboy2]

the true with noctua fans in push pull is best. whether its worth the extra money for a few degrees c is up to you

 

[rockbyter]

Any heatsink performs better if you don't care about noise. Tuniq tower was on that power system with a q9650 running at 4 GHz that made the home page last week. not bad at all, but not quiet. The TRUE will do better at low fan speeds, but any of the big ones will do pretty darn well to a point.

I use the Tuniq, it was cheap, i put a quieter fan in so it's hardly audible if i want it to be. 3 GHz q6600 does not phase it. 3.2 GHz 8x400 requires more fan speed. 3.6 max fan speed (may as well use fan it comes with).

I would avoid anything you cannot replace the fan on, (zalman). Not having the ability to replace moving parts is a bad design.

 

[Priv]

Money is not an issue for me, basicly it's going to be a birthday present. Watercooling is a waste of money though, the TRUE with 2x Noctua fans sounds good though, no noise and awesome performance, I'll probably go with that.