CPU Fan-cooling recommendation for Phenom 2 (AM2+)

[shugs]

I've just ordered a phenom II and i'm looking for a good aftermarket CPU cooler (not water cooling), which air-cooler do you guys advise me to get??

I have no experience in aftermarket coolers and overlocking, but I want to eventually overclock the CPU so that the build will last me about 2-3 years. With that in mind...What can you experts advise? 😱 There's just too many type of brands and varying air-cooling products.

Thanks in advance!

- Shugs

 

[Guest]

Hey, i suggest an Asus Silent Knight 2, im getting one for the phenom 2 920, and i herd they are very good at keeping the cpu temp down even after it being over clocked.

Consists of copper heatpipes and a fan to get rid of the heat from the pipes, the fan is also covered by a copper surrounding. Got a cool light as well 😉

Ull be able to pick it up for about £40

Hope it helps

😉

 

[shugs]

I've been searching online a bit and found the following that were somewhat within my price range and certified to fit on a AM2+ Socket...

ASUS Triton 81 CPU Cooler (Socket 775/939/940/AM2/AM2+/1207+/1366)

ASUS Royal Knight CPU Cooler (Socket 775, AM2, AM2+, F, F+)

Cooler Master Hyper Z600 Socket 775/939/940/AM2/AM2+ CPU Cooler

Noctua NH-U12P CPU Cooler (Socket 775,754,939,940,AM2,AM2+)


I found this Zalman, I read online that the CNPS9700 is very good, this is the closest I could on the site that I purchase my products...

Zalman CNPS9900 LED CPU Cooler Socket 754/775/939/940/AM2/AM2+/1366

Anyone have any experience with this Zalman CNPS9900? I do prefer one w/out the LED since I really don't need the flashy lights, but if it is as good as said then I will consider it.

Thnx in advance,


- Shugs

 

[shugs]

Hey, i suggest an Asus Silent Knight 2, im getting one for the phenom 2 920, and i herd they are very good at keeping the cpu temp down even after it being over clocked.

Ull be able to pick it up for about £40

Hope it helps

😉

Thanks I'll try to look for that one, is the silent knight 2 the predecessor of the Royal Knight? Its about the same price given euro-pound exchange rate. I'll use it to compare it to the ones I posted a little ago.

Consists of copper heatpipes and a fan to get rid of the heat from the pipes, the fan is also covered by a copper surrounding. Got a cool light as well 😉

Thing is my case is a closed box, so I can't really take much pleasure in one w/a light 🙁

 

[Raviolissimo]

the Noctua's good for a tower heatsink. i have an NH-U12P on an E6850 dual core running Vista. super quiet, probably doesn't need the fan.

http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=2362

Frostytech has a review on the Zalman 9900, their new heatsink.

it performs about as well as the Noctua, 3 to 4 degrees hotter than the best-performing ones, like the Thermolab Baram and the TRight U120 (which has flatness problems).

 

[shugs]

While reviewing the article that you posted, I checked out a couple otherones as well. I noticed that the website was missing a review on the Thermalright IFX 14 which is also very good supposedly. Although quite expensive since it comes w/out any fans.

It looks like this search for a cooler is harder then I had originally thought 🙁

 

[tempelife]

I think the best cooler/combo for the money and quiet noise is:
OCZ Vendetta2 Cooler

Two Charts: Mobo Positioned Horizontally & Vertically (It performs awesome vertically).
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=153&Itemid=1&limit=1&limitstart=5

Great Price:
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10008593&prodlist=celebros


I OC'd my 9950 nearly 500mhz and the CPU idles very cool at 38.5C.
When I push it, I can't get it past 44C.
I can get to 3.4ghz, but it isn't stable.
If you cared enough to tweak settings painstakingly, you could probably could run stable at 3.25ghz on the OCZ Vendetta 2 cooler.


Asus M3A78-T
AMD x4 9950BE 3.082ghz @ 1.375V
OCZ Vendetta2 Cooler
Western Digital WD5000AAKS (4) RAID 10
Patriot Viper 4BG (2x2GB) DDR2-8500
Thermaltake Case Armor+ Mx VH8000BWS
OCZ GameXstream 700W PSU
ATI Radeon HD 3300 IGP – non- gamer (good enough for me)
Vista Ultimate x64 SP1
Acer X223Wbd
$1195 Out the Door (Yes, I paid for Vista)

 

[shugs]

Tempelife: thanks for the input, I forgot to add that I just recently purchased a CPU Cooler... I ended up getting the Coolermaster V8. Unfortunately my build won't POST/boot, or atleast my monitor doesn't receive a signal. So i'll have to wait and see how efficient the V8 eventually is.

 

[tempelife]

I just got a Phenom II, and it doesn't OC well. I think I got a junk chip.
My temps are higher with 940 on lower Vcore than with 9950, WTF?
I could easily OC the 9950 500mhz w/o doing too much.
I probably could have pushed for 600-700mhz if I really wanted to spend the time.

I can OC the 940 400mhz no problem (multi only, no extra vcore), but getting 500mhz stable feels impossible with my chip.
Anytime I add vcore is a disaster. Mine hates volts. NB not very overclockable either.
I got my AC blasting to see if maybe the problem is ambient temperature since they are climate is about 15 degrees higher now since December.
What am I gonna do in the Summer here in Phx when it's 120F out? That's an OC nightmare.

 

[shugs]

I haven't attempted OCing yet, been far to busy studying...yeah...i know 🙁... But I guess its a faulty chip, I will try to start OCing by just adjsu8ting the multiplier and see what happens this weekend. I'll let u know how it works for me.

Yeah I was in phoenix, well a long time ago, during the summer it was definately far too hot! I live in europe now and tbh the temps here don't get much higher then 100F if were lucky during the summer for maybe a day or two at most! I've been having -10C to -20 outside since the past couple weeks! My case temp doesn't go above 30C 😉 (on average between 25-28C) The CPU is @32-35C partially idle w/the coolermaster V8. Quite satisfied w/it, but I didn't expect otherwise since that thang is SHUGE! (normally that doesn't mean anything but in this case SIZE DOES MATTER)

 

[shugs]

gsus too bad I can't edit..haha ignore the spellin mistakes..so much for rereading my post 😉

 

[Cervani]

I personally use a Sunbeam CoreContact freezer on my AM2 6000+. However, I just ordered a Phenom II X4 940, and I plan on putting it on there as well. I'll let you know how it turns out 😀.

Currently, my temps with my 6000+ are: 26-27C idle, 33-34C under load (gaming) so I'm anxious to see it perform on the P2.

 

[tempelife]

From everything I've seen the Vendetta2 ranks pretty high (and quieter than anything else that cools as well), so I don't know if another Air Cooled would do much better.

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=153&Itemid=1&limit=1&limitstart=5
http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=2279&page=4

Outside temp has dropped back from 80F to 65F over the last week as a result ambient room temp is coooler, so OCin'g proving too be much easier.
Ide tempes went from 38C to 32C.
Even at 3.4GHz, idle is at 33-34C.
When I have some time, I'll try to hit 3.6-3.7.

But the Phenom II does not need much of Voltage increase.
I think it may have something to do with being a 45nm process.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

Here's a link to info about cpu heatsinks that you might find interesting:

http://www.frostytech.com/top5heatsinks.cfm