Best air CPU cooler

[Pob255]

Is it my imagination or is the Zalman aero flower 775 mounting bracket just a modified AM2 mounting bracket



Must say I love the flash animation mounting instructions on the Zalman website.

[godsdog]

Did I sound like a plate?

"What was that smashing sound?"
"I dropped a chocolate biscuit!"

Must depend on the chocolate biscuit.. what sort was it? Chocolate digestive, Chocolate rich tea? Other? It would also depend on the freshness - a stale slightly soft biscuit might not shatter. And what if it had been dunked first? In tha event it might just crumble rather than break. I think we need more information (BTW - interesting topic on coolers!)

The heating failed this week, I've been waiting for the boiler man to turn up, the kitchen floor has those terracotta tile things down. I left a new packet of mcvities chocolate digestive biscuits out near the window. Picked the packet up and thought "myy, they're cold", proceeded to open the packet and my numb fingers fumbled and the top chocolate biscuit plummetted downwards and hit the floor full on - where it split in half, and then further bits - very much reminding me of a plate breaking

I have a theory as to why it happened so (apart from the temperature), but...back to the coolers .....
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[moogle]

just to update the thread, i've got temps of 44-45 and 33-34 with this ultra 120A on a quad under load. so it's not doing bad considering the room is now warm due to me leaving the heating on. I read clunks thread and I'm going to adjust the screws to balance out the temp difference. Oh how I would love load temps of 33-35. i think i shall tighten the top 2 screws as the weight of the heatsink reduces the overall pushing force at them I think.

[JIM_BOB7813]

just to update the thread, i've got temps of 44-45 and 33-34 with this ultra 120A on a quad under load. so it's not doing bad considering the room is now warm due to me leaving the heating on. I read clunks thread and I'm going to adjust the screws to balance out the temp difference. Oh how I would love load temps of 33-35. i think i shall tighten the top 2 screws as the weight of the heatsink reduces the overall pushing force at them I think.

What RPM is the (120mm?) fan at?

[moogle]

What RPM is the (120mm?) fan at?

2200 antec tricool fan 74cfm... yes i know its loud but in my soundproofed case it seems to just humm like any other average pc's.
but its 30db at 2200 as it's specs.

[amjedm]

Slight off topic (sorry)

Can I ask why the Ninja isn't recommended? Is it because it's a bit on the pricey side or are the others superior (cooling wise)?

I'm running fanless Ninjas on a couple of AMD setups

[staffsMike]

well once you go ninja..

I think they're great.

[TooNice]

I suspect that the Ninja is still the cooler to beat in fanless operations due to it's wider spaced fins, but the Thermalright 120-UE takes the lead beyond the most minimum airflow (i.e. something faster than a 800RPM fan @5V). And the faster the fan the more alternative coolers gain on the Ninja. It's still rank amongst the best in most reviews I've seen, but whether it is the best depends on what fan (if any) used.
Personally, I am probably going to go 120-UE if I can find a decent deal on it, only because I heard that it is a little easier to fit than a Ninja for Intel 775 platforms.

[staffsMike]

Not much in it really.. The push pins are simple enough when the motherboard is out..which you have to do for the Thermalright anyway so its swings and roundabouts.

[Prismatic]

I had trouble deciding between the Ninja and 120-UE. I went with the Ninja as I thought I might be going the quiet route and the fact that the 120-UE costs £10 more decided it. After a week of use I replaced the plastic pins with bolts (I had the old Ninja's 478 back plate laying around) and temps dropped between 5-10C under load. Idle was unchanged.

My friend had a worse experience with the Ninja and saw a 15C improvement switching to the 120-UE. Maybe the holes and/or the pins weren't up to standard this time, they just weren't working for him.

Perhaps it's time for the manufacturers to start including some kind of back plate with new motherboards. I think I heard about a guy who wanted to mod a chopping board to support his cooler!

[staffsMike]

Are you sure it was fit properly? If it were I doubt there would be a 15 degree difference between the two.

Me and my mate both have E6600's overclocked to 3.4GHz and mine is using the artic freezer pro and is 10 degree's better off than his Thermalright Extreme

It is a bit tricky to fit the first time and you do have to force it down quite hard but once it's on it's fantastic. Keeps a stock E6600 at 18 degree's in my other pc

[stiggyb]

Is there any real difference between Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme and Zalman CNPS9700-NT? heat and sound wise

[Pob255]

Sound alway depends on the ultra 120 e, as you have to get a fan your self because it doen't come with one.

The Zalman is good, but for the price there are better coolers around or simular performance for less

I also think the ninja has gone down in popularity a bit for the same reason, esp after the Mine, which although it's not as easy to fit or as small as I thought it was it's got good performance for a good price. (it's basically the same size as the ninja without a fan attached)

For me it's this order
Asaka AK-965x3, Low cost vs performance (beats the ACf7p as it's slightly cheaper)
Scythe Mine, good price vs good performance
Thermal right Ultima 90, good performance vs size
Thermalright Ultra 120 extreme, high cost vs great performance

What I am intrested in seeing is how the new NorthQ and Xigmatek coolers stack up against them (they both use wider heat pipes which directly contact with the cpu heatspreader)

[godsdog]

For me it's this order
Asaka AK-965x3, Low cost vs performance (beats the ACf7p as it's slightly cheaper)
Scythe Mine, good price vs good performance
Thermalright Ultima 90, good performance vs size
Thermalright Ultra 120 extreme, high cost vs great performance

The Ultima-90 can do a 3.6 OC quite comfortably with a Q6600 G0, I'd upgrade the "good" to "great" performance vs size.

[Pob255]

Sorry, just to clear that up.
vs not for, I mean it as a trade off
Probably should of been very good performance vs size
Simply put, compaired to the ultra 120 extreme, it's performance is not as good but it's far smaller so you are tradeing off performance for a smaller cooler.
That said it does hold it's own in performance against some of the larger coolers (esp the slightly older ones)

[Dreaming]

I'm currently idling at 21*C on my artic cooling freezer 7 pro... .

Load is around 29 / 30.

Secret: Lian-Li PC-A05. Pushing cold air from outside the case straight into the cooler does wonders for the CPU temp. That's a c2d e6300 @ 2.8. (stock 1.83). In the p182 it was at 30 idle 40 load. GPU... there's a different story. Going to need to work out some way to cool it down.