Overclocking On Air: 10 LGA 1156-Compatible Performance Coolers

[Honis]

[citation][nom]zipzoomflyhigh[/nom]That's why Frostytech's cooler rankings are skewed, they use the same paste for every single cooler test. Negating any advantage a manufacturer has for that specific cooler.[/citation]
Actually, using the same thermal past makes the test results more valid because they are testing the heatsinks abilities, not the thermal paste. If they used the manufacturers paste, it may have skewed the results in favor of one heatsink over another even though the now lesser performing heatsink is a better product, just shipped with cheap paste. With these results people can look at aftermarket thermal pastes and apply whatever they think is best knowing that they bought the better heatsink to match.

Do you honestly use the manufacturers paste? I think Tom's has a benchmark for that...

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]fred2421[/nom]Quick question..these temps you are showing they are all with an ambient temperature of 11C? So when you say 82C over ambient the temps are actually 82+11=93C?[/citation]Heheh, no only the Artic Cooling cooler was tested at 11C because it's the only one that needed to be tested at 11C. The rest were tested at 20C. And yes, 82+11=93.[citation][nom]JohnnyLucky[/nom]I was surprised the new Thermalright Venoumous X was not included...Didn't THG mention in an older article that those extra tall heatspreaders that sort of look like a comb did not provide any additional cooling over stock heatspreaders?[/citation]I'm surprised Thermalright didn't send the Venomous X for evaluation, but I guess they thought the MUX-120 would have a better value spin.
As for the heat spreader issue, it's most likely due to the thermal interface material. Generally speaking when two sets of memory are tested at 1.65V the ones that overclock best have NO heat spreaders. Not standard heat spreaders. Take a look at the most recent dual-channel DDR3 roundup to see how the Crucial RAM (D9KPT) beat the Patriot RAM (D9KPT) and then look at some of the System Builder Marathons to see how the high end system (bare memory) usually gets higher data rates than the mid-priced system (usually the same memory with heat spreaders).

 

[SininStyle]

With your price/performance calculations do you use the temps resulting from the aftermarket fans?
Your value on the MUX-120 is lost if you buy some decent fans for it. Dropping comparable fans on it as the Noctua would run ya $40 for 2.
The noctua dropped 1c with your fans on it instead. obviously not worth the money. The mux-120 dropped 7c.
So you take the $50 cooler buy $40 fans for it and the result is worse cooling then a Noctua d-14 with stock fans at $5 less in price.
Is my math flawed?

 

[siman]

Thermalright IFX-14 with Delta PFB1212UHE with 252 CFM of air flow pop it right in the middle and lather some Shin-Etsu X23 past all thermal problems solved and OC potental probaly the highest for any and all CPUs the thing is compatible with.

 

[tommysch]

Where is the V-10?!

 

[marceoks]

It would have been nice to add how the stock cooler behave under the same tests...

 

[Guest]

I hope that this article will be updated to include stats from Venomous-X and Cogage Arrow CPU Cooler.
It is said that they are better than any other coolers out there?

 

[rodney_ws]

I'd just like to know how this review/comparison (specifically in regards to the Tuniq Tower) contrasts so sharply with FrostyTech's review of the same cooler? Their review would have you thinking that cooler is the second coming of Jesus Christ... and this review makes you think it's just another cooler. This rattles my faith in someone's testing methodology... I'm just not sure whose.

 

[Pei-chen]

[citation][nom]zipzoomflyhigh[/nom]Too bad Tom's Hardware left out the most important thing in the test. Did they use the thermal paste that came with the cooler or did they use the same thermal paste to test them all???This would make a significant difference in the results.[/citation]
Since they removed the pre-applied paste from Freezer 7 I would assume they used AS5 on all coolers.

[citation][nom]fred2421[/nom]Quick question..these temps you are showing they are all with an ambient temperature of 11C? So when you say 82C over ambient the temps are actually 82+11=93C?[/citation]
Sounds like it. While other coolers has no problem keeping temp under control, Freezer 7 needs very cool air to not hit 100*C, the CPU limit.

[citation][nom]davc[/nom]How much better are all these compared to the stock cooler? It would have been interesting to see that included in the tables just for a benchmark.but great article. I've recently built an i5 750 based PC and am fairly new to overclocking, so this is particularly helpful for me[/citation]
I don’t think stock cooler can hit 4.0GHz

Scythe makes some good heatsinks. I got one for my HTPC and the quality is really good for the price.

 

[sublifer]

xigmatek and tuniq, traditionally the top performers, submitted painted models for comparison??? Maybe thats not paint... I sure hope not... but I imagine if they skipped that crap it'd perform much better.

 

[cadder]

I am about to buy 2 coolers for new i5 builds- this is a great article and comes at just the right time for me!

 

[Guest]

One advantage Cooler Master's very low-cost but effective Hyper 212 Plus have is that the cooler already is buildt for adding a second 120mm fan of your choice. Extra holders are included. Then you have even better cooling effect and still very cheap.

 

[masterasia]

Where are the Prolimatech coolers Mega Shadow and Megahelems?
Prolimatech makes has the best air cooler right now.

 

[Onus]

I have an AC Freezer 7 Pro on my 3.2GHz Q9450. The loaded temp is a tolerable 55C, but the whiny noise it makes is not, so I am going to replace it. I was thinking of the Hyper 212 Plus because of the larger fan, but see that it is louder. Was that with the stock fan, or the alternative? Is it whiney-louder (worse) or whooshing-louder (tolerable). That's one nice thing about the sound clips that Frostytech puts up.

 

[fatkid35]

[citation][nom]falchard[/nom]What no Coolermaster V10 or Thermaltake SpinQ Vertical?[/citation]

overpriced, oversized crap. v-10s are if you want the inside of your case to look like a circus wagon. spinQ is just lame. hyper 212 is simple and effective. more is not always better.

 

[wht1986]

I have the 212+ and though I am happy with the temps, the fan noise when it speeds up is quite noticable. I will probably swap out the fan and put one of my trusty Noctua's in there.

 

[Guest]

What PWM fan did you add to your Thermalright? I would love to see a review on PWM fans.

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]sublifer[/nom]xigmatek and tuniq, traditionally the top performers, submitted painted models for comparison??? Maybe thats not paint... I sure hope not... but I imagine if they skipped that crap it'd perform much better.[/citation]Tuniq appears to be paint, while Xigmatek appears to be plating. If you look back at December's System Builder Marathon you'll see a note about the Xigmatek Crossbow installation kit not providing enough contact pressure, which is the most likely cause for Xigmatek's mediocre performance here.

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]jtt283[/nom]I have an AC Freezer 7 Pro on my 3.2GHz Q9450. The loaded temp is a tolerable 55C, but the whiny noise it makes is not, so I am going to replace it. I was thinking of the Hyper 212 Plus because of the larger fan, but see that it is louder. Was that with the stock fan, or the alternative? Is it whiney-louder (worse) or whooshing-louder (tolerable). That's one nice thing about the sound clips that Frostytech puts up.[/citation]That's what Tom's used dBA rather than dBC scaling. dBA highlights whiney noise while dBC picks up more whooshing noise.

If you like the Cooler Master cooler, use it and turn the fan speed down.[citation][nom]stuplarosa[/nom]What PWM fan did you add to your Thermalright? I would love to see a review on PWM fans.[/citation]Awesome idea!

 

[Guest]

http://www.frostytech.com it the definitive source for air cooling. The results are not the same.

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]QAZ2wsxP[/nom]http://www.frostytech.com it the definitive source for air cooling. The results are not the same.[/citation]

Defining what? How does a test of LGA775 define anything? One of the problems of not testing on LGA-1156 is that you don't know how well the installation kit works. Tom's Hardware has already had bad experience with some mounting kits not providing enough contact pressure on LGA-1156, sooo...

Meet the new boss.

 

[overshocked]

Surprised that the non direct contact coolers did so well...

 

[Deke_15]

"With our recommendations out of the way, it’s worth noting that while several coolers included manual fan speed controllers, only three supported  pulse-width modulation (PWM) fan speed control. Of those, Scythe’s Mugen-2 Rev. B was the only one to make its way into our recommendations. "

Doesn't the features slide show the Hyper 212 plus has PWM? Isn't it also reccommended in this article?

 

[Guest]

Coincidentally I just bought and installed the Freezer 7 r2 on my i5-750 because it was inexpensive and had a lot of good reviews. While it's disappointing to see it at the bottom of the list on most of these tests, I will say that it is way better than the stock cooler in temperature and noise. The difference is about 20 degrees, and the fan speed stays between 1500-1600 RPM at load.

 

[chunkymonster]

I purchased the Scythe Mugen2 B on a lark when I built my i7 machine over 9 months ago without ever reading or hearing anything about it. I had purchased other Scythe coolers in the past and liked their designs and was happy with their cooling performance. Since then it has proven itself even with oc'ing my D0 to 4GHz and running 8 threads of Prime95 without issue. It is everything the article makes it out to be and highly recommend it.