In general Noctua, though the Scythe Big Shuriken for low profile is good too
In general Noctua, though the Scythe Big Shuriken for low profile is good too
Used Noctua, would use again if going for an air cooler due to good temps / noise. Currently using a Corsair H70 AIO in push / pull config, which has been going strong since I built my PC in ... 2011? Never had issues with it, nor pump noise. Survived a move during that, which a happy by-product of choosing to go with an aio, is the lack of weight on the motherboard means less concern when hitting those bumps on the road.
Even though I've heard only amazing things about Noctua's coolers, I've never needed to change my CoolerMaster 212 EVO. It's pretty good, it does the job quietly and looks good doing it. What more could you want?
Thermalright (the makers of the first now all that common heat-pipe CPU cooler) has always been the one that has my heart. Being a proud owner of an IFX-14 (Infernal Fire eXtinguisher, that's a proper cooler's name!), a Venomous X, and a TRUE Spirit 140 that never have let me down. Sadly, the laptop CPUs with unlocked multipliers (Core i) and high thermal density killed the need for huge dual tower 6+ heat-pipe monsters and now everyone uses an (ugly) AIO. Honourable mentions are, of course, Noctua (the modern king of the air in terms of efficiency and performance), CoolerMaster (makers of the most popular and best price/performance cooler for the past 6.5 years and probably for the next 6.5 years), the forgotten heavyweights Thermaltake (Sonic Tower - first tower cooler) and Scythe (from exotic Japan, creating 1+kg mammoths for years Infinity), and Zalman (manufacturer of coolers that were performing badly compared to the new breed of towers but you wanted to buy them anyway because they were sooo pretty CNPS 9700 NT). It is absolutely astonishing how much variety there was in coolers - in size, shape, form, colour, and weight - back when overclocking was a more engaging thing and people were achieving 100%+ OC on air for 24/7. Most of those companies have probably gone bust by now. The new breed of coolers is much more boring due to the relatively known and understood best designs, no more experimentation and cutting-edge innovation, just RGB.
P.S. I'm so sorry I forgot Prolimatech with their totally revolutionary (in terms of overall performance) Megahalems that showed the big boys that you can be clever and without much resources still get amazing efficiency.
Last edited by Stuen4y; 06-08-2018 at 07:14 AM.
I used an Arctic Freezer 7 as my last air cooler - maybe not the best but certainly amazing bang for buck. Now I'm on some AIO thing which works damned well at keeping temps at bay. At the moment my CPU just isn't bottlenecking anything but the minute it does I have the hardware in place to overclock it. I did wonder though, so many of the AIOs appear to be so, so similar - are they made by the same OEM company (with some different casings and slightly different cooling blocks) and then branded and sent out?
AIO at a perice/performance that in my opinion is fantastic, with a surprise 4 quiet fans for push/pull .. ARCTIC Liquid Freezer 240, Ryzen 5 2600 idle at 26c and whisper quiet.
I'm still rocking a Prolimatech Megahalems on my older i7 860 - that's been rock solid for many years now with a hefty overclock.
The Noctua NH-14D on my i5 4670K (o/c to 4.3 all cores) sits vertically on a horizontal microATX board in a xigmatek mATX case and has been brilliant.
Both VERY quiet coolers and easily handle the overclocked CPUs. Saving for a new system as I changed career and now use my machine for content creation rather than only gaming, and I'm hoping to stick with air cooling if possible. Mates have had no end of trouble with noisy AIO water cooling - I reckon if you go water it's worth going for a proper custom loop, they AIO coolers just don't seem to offer anything over a good air cooler (and are noisier too).
Haven't had a huge amount of experience swapping in/out coolers but I do prefer Cooler Master for small machines, they have some great bang for buck. My current PC runs an Alpenfohn Brocken 3 and it blew the old 212 EVO out of the water. A few well placed Thermaltake Riing 140mm fans keep the air moving where I want it.
Frankly, between the Brocken and my R9, the heat transfer out of the machine and into the room has been TOO good and I'm practically turning the room into an oven with GTA V.
Personally I've never had a problem with the cooler that comes with the CPU, on the basis that it is the one the designed for the device.
(\__/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")
Been helped or just 'Like' a post? Use the Thanks button!
My broadband speed - 750 Meganibbles/minute
I've been using Cryorig recently and am amazed at the price & quality. Definitely will be my "go to" cooler in the future if Noctura doesn't venture in AIO anytime soon.
And the latest Intel K series CPU's don't even come with a cooler! So think in this case, it would be running rather hot if you used the cooler that it came with (IE. none)
Live long and prosper.
Guess I'd be using something like this then
https://www.novatech.co.uk/products/...oaAgxmEALw_wcB
(\__/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")
Been helped or just 'Like' a post? Use the Thanks button!
My broadband speed - 750 Meganibbles/minute
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)