In Pictures: 20 Heat Sinks That Look Cool, Too

[hundredislandsboy]

They make CPU coolers that lool like car engines, jet engines, orbs, skyscrapers, etc. Why not make one that looks like a cooler, say a miniature fride, white, 2 small fake doors? Or one with white fins and fake ice frost?? Cooper, silver, metallic, looks cool but I'd make one that looks like a chunck of ice cure or better a tip of an iceberg!

 

[jerreece]

We're assuming that this cooler was designed with a "muscle car" block in mind--one of those fancy beasts that normally protrude from the car's hood.

You're talking about the Air Scoop that sticks out of the hood, which is part of the "blower" system. Like one of these:

http://www.southernhotrods.com/images/68_camaro_blower_016_rbhg.jpg

 

[rockstone1]

I have and am using the V8. The controls are mounted at the back- and I don't know what direction increases the fan speed. other than that, it's a nice CPU cooler- but it's far from the best.

 

[jsm6746]

i think the article may have not posted right... the page showing the bench mark results is missing...

 

[Guest]

Passive power supplies are expensive It's the only part that makes noise in this computer although it's a silent one, the fridge close to me makes more noise

 

[Poisoner]

This article reminds me of one of my core values. Function before style.

 

[jimmysmitty]

For looks, I prefer my Zalman CNPS9700 LED. Its light blue hue goes well with my blue LED fans.

But that CNPS10X Extreme looks pretty nice in terms of performance. Just need to add a LED version and I will take it.

 

[Reynod]

Some cool pics there Kevin.

 

[vexun11]

Awesome, I'm glad to see my megahalems on there, I have 2 120mm apevia blue LED fans on it and it looks sick.

 

[Ubrales]

Good information all in one place!

 

[red1776]

animaniac, the V8 is a great high end OC'ing cooler, I OC, the hell out of the systems I build for high end game systems and its in the top 5, the benches reflect this as well...perhaps you should stop using toothpaste as thermal compound.

 

[eddieroolz]

Damn, neat heatsinks! I remember about reading the 100% passively cooled PC article years back and wanted to replicate his achievements with modern parts.

 

[Guest]

I Have the Noctua NH-D14 (HOW COME ITS NOT IT THIS?!?!?!) my i7 920 is at 4Ghz and only idles 2-4C above room temperature XD

 

[dco]

I'm surprised their still making so many heat sinks for older sockets, good stuff

 

[hundredislandsboy]

To be fair and balanced, how about an article of "ugly" heatsinks that work well or doesn't work well, kind of like sad moments in the history of CPU coolers?

Or maybe shipset coolers or DIMM coolers too with the tiny, tiny fans?

 

[therealfly]

Epic fail for having the Cooler Master V8, but not the Cooler Master V10.

 

[Userremoved]

[citation][nom]therealfly[/nom]Epic fail for having the Cooler Master V8, but not the Cooler Master V10.[/citation]
Bohohoho! They did not put another one of those weird cooler. This makes PURE FAIL automatically!
/Sarcasm

 

[Marcus52]

[citation][nom]anamaniac[/nom]I love my CM V8. Sure, not the prettiest thing around, and it's a horrible cooler if you want high end air cooling (get a TRUE for that), but damn, even at max speed, I can't hear it over even my case fans and GPU all at minimum RPM.Though I have been tempted to slap two more fans on it (for each side).The sheer size of it though makes it so I have to remove the HSF before removing the first DIMM. Pain in the ass when I have a corrupt stick of memory.[/citation]

Not sure what the deal is with some people, but I was able to get my i7 920 to a stable (Prime 95 tested and been running for over a year and a half) to 4.1 GHz with this cooler in conjunction with Tuniq's TX-2 thermal paste. It's cooling technique is the same as the "best rated" coolers, and construction is good quality, so there's really not much reason it shouldn't perform very well, even if it doesn't come out on top by half a degree at full load in someone's single-application test.

Really, if you are going to publish tests of CPU coolers it would be much more accurate to set up at least a half dozen identical machines with each cooler; I suspect that if anyone did that, they'd find that the variations they see between different brands of coolers that are very close are little if any different than side by side tests of the same cooler. Certainly, thermal paste application plays a key role in results, and from what I can gather reading forum posts, many people don't get it, and don't use good technique. I suspect that plays a large role in some individual beliefs about cooling solutions.

The CM V8 imo looks very cool (no pun intended), and I must admit that, once I realized its similarity in design to other top end coolers, the looks swayed my decision about which one to purchase. Truthfully, I hoped to be able to reach 3.8 GHz on the i7, and thought I was taking a gamble on this cooler, and might actually have to send it back and get a better one. I was very pleasantly surprised to be able to get the results I did. (I don't attribute the 4.1 GHz result to this cooler, I think I got lucky and got one of the better overclocking 920s, but I wouldn't have been able to reach it if the cooler wasn't very good and my technique for assembling my system wasn't sound.)

 

[jsc]

I'd love to see a comparison test using a TRUE for the benchmark.

 

[duk3]

They should have benchmarked how cool they are compared to how they cool.