FX-6300 Aftermarket Fan/Heatsink Suggestions for Under $25

[theHexCore]

I'm looking for a good fan/heatsink for under $25. I don't plan on doing any overclocking so I don't feel like I need to spend too much, but the stock coolor combo that came with my AMD FX-6300 is extremely noisy and not very effective so I want to upgrade.


Newegg has a few sales going on and here are a few of the heatsinks I was looking at:

Cooler Master Hyper TX3
Arctic Freezer 7 Pro
ZALMAN CNPS9500


Any advice is greatly appreciated!

 

[firo40]

I'd take the zalman they make great aftermarket coolers

 

[ohyes247]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835146026

Better than the 212 evo and is only 25$ i know you said below but it will help keep cool. And even if you arent going to overclock now, If you do later it will easily get that cpu upwards of 4.6 or 4.7Ghz

Edit: Free shipping to, Also i had the one below it, The Respire T20 it kept my phenom II 965 at 4.0Ghz Cool.

 

[firo40]

Lol 4.6 4.7 good luck maybe in constant idle or with one core active but for a constant over clock not happening

 

[ohyes247]

If the T20 could keep a 125w cpu with over volting and a overclock cool. While stressing, That would easily keep a 95w cpu cool. I had a FX-6300 overclocked at 4.5 with a $14 heatsink and it was stable in everything.

 

[Extremehotdog]

The Scythe Mugen 2 performs great, runs almost sillently and overclocks really greatly also, I have used the Mugen 2 and the Hyper 212 Evo in my builds and I can say that Scythe is better.

 

[Savagearms]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835146026

Better than the 212 evo and is only 25$ i know you said below but it will help keep cool. And even if you arent going to overclock now, If you do later it will easily get that cpu upwards of 4.6 or 4.7Ghz

From what I've read, the Evo (And in turn, the 212+), is the better cooler of the two. This seems to confirm it:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NZXT/Respire_T40/6.html

It is by no means a bad cooler, but I'd take the Evo/212+ over it, personally.

Anyway, of the 3 you listed, theHexCore, the Zalman will cool the best, and by quite a fair margin as well. As you can see here (It's a review for the TX3, but you can see the Zalman listed a bit higher up):

http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=2401&page=4

 

[ohyes247]

Well if you get the 212 Evo have fun putting it on, I bought it because i couldn't afford the Dark Knight II which i originally planned to get, And putting it on was the most stressful heatsink installation i have ever done.

 

[Savagearms]

Well if you get the 212 Evo have fun putting it on, I bought it because i couldn't afford the Dark Knight II which i originally planned to get, And putting it on was the most stressful heatsink installation i have ever done.

If your board is in the case, and the case itself doesn't give good access to the back of the board, it could be a pain to install, I must admit. But once the backplate is secure, it's fairly easy and painless to just take the heatsink on and off with that X-bracket.

 

[theHexCore]

After running some more tests I found out a couple things:

1. The program I was using monitor my CPU temp. was waaaay off. I was initially using MSI Control Center, and it measured my temperature hitting 69C with Prime95 was running . I ran the same tests with HWmonitor, and it measured my CPU temp. never exceeding 51C during Prime95, so I'm inclined to believe HWmonitor's results rather than MSI's program.
2. The obnoxious fan noise is my XFX 6870 GPU. The AMD's fan is actually pretty quiet haha.

So for now I'm going to hold off on a new CPU fan, but now I have two new questions. First, can I trust HWmonitor's temperature reading? Second, is there a better way to throttle my GPU's fan speed other than AMD's CCC?

 

[ohyes247]

Any of the GPU overclocking apps, MSI afterburner (most used i believed) HIS iTurbo (good easy to use layout) any others.

 

[FALC0N]

I'm a fan of Arctic cooling because they don't require you to replace the backplate. In fact, on amd boards it attaches to the stock bracket. Doesn't get any simpler than that. I would consider the freezer 7 for that reason alone. And they are pretty quiet too.

 

[jeffredo]

This is a discontinued model from several years ago, but its has a 120mm fan with very good cooling and is much quieter than stock. For your purposes its all you need. The nice thing about it is that you just screw the AMD bracket/clips onto the fan itself and then install it just like you would the stock AMD fan (no removal of the motherboard - just takes a couple minutes). Even though it only lists AM2 the fan mount is the same as AM3/AM3+. Its also rated for 150W, so your 92W FX-6300 will be fine. I found one for $18 new by an Amazon seller:
http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=2281&page=1
http://www.amazon.com/ZEROtherm-Aluminum-Copper-Cooler-Retail/dp/B001AR6DYO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1387214999&sr=8-1&keywords=zerotherm+zen

 

[logainofhades]

For $25 and under, this is the best you will probably get.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835146026