Best CPU cooler for UNDER £20?

Hi all.

Having problems with my stock cooler keeping temps in check and its a hog for noise. got an i5 2400 so can't overclock anyway.

Just after a decent cooler that will do the job quietly. One stipulation other than price...it CAN NOT have those crappy flimsy plastic clip in pins to hold it in place. I'd preferably like something that screws in. I've had nothing but problems with those plastic pins on about 5 different stock coolers (for diff machines) and an Arctic Cooler Pro 7 V1.

It cannot come to any more than £21 DELIVERED (I'm thinking might be best value for money to get something just over £20 from Scan to qualify for free shipping).

SO far I am looking at:

CM Hyper 212 £15.56
Arctic Cooler 13 £19.52
AC 7 v2 £18.74

None of which include delivery (from Scan) thought I could probably just buy a couple of case fans or some thermal paste to take it over the £20 threshold (is it still £20 or have they upped it to £25?)


any thoughts or other suggestions?

Cheers

if im not mistaken, its £20 exc tax :(

Not much between the options above realy but i reckon the AC 13. Personally though, i have had better results with cheap akasa coolers than cheap AC ones such as:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/akasa...-all-intel-amd

Fans on those things are great!

THanks for the input. Looks like its got the dreaded plastic pins though!

Two out of your three use the push pins that you said you couldn't have, so that leaves the CM.

Not too impressed with my AC7 v2 - temps around 72 full load on a 4Ghz i5 2500K - that's after cleaning and reapplying thermal paste which helped by about 2 deg.

Pity as my old AC7 on the 775 platform was spot on.

Get the the CM Hyper 212 PLUS, afaik it is the newer version that comes with a better fan than the older CM hyper 212

Usually it can be found under £20, on scans today only, or even on amazon or play.com

push pins are annoying, there is no denying that! Thing is they are a cheap stock part meaning you are getting more from the rest of the cooler if money doesnt go on the mounting mechanism. When you looking at such low budget i think its a sacrifice you have to make!

Honestly, once you get them it they are fine, i wouldn't fuss over them too much.

I would go for the Coolermaster hyper 212 plus. Performance is much better than stock and a lot quiter but its a tall cooler and you need acess to the back of the motherboard to mount it which may mean a strip down of your build if you have no CPU cutout on your case.

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/coole...m2-am2plus-am3
Its a £1 over your budget though:p. But I have seen it on scans today only for about £15 if you dont mind waiting.

EDIT: Basically what iron sights said.

Just for the record, the Arctic Cooling 13 (the Pro Extreme version anyway) does use plastic push-pins for Intel sockets, but they're different to the Intel push pins - they may or may not be more secure/easier to use/whatever, but I've no experience of them myself as I used the AMD mount, which uses metal screws and plates.

I used the Coolermaster Hyper 212 Plus on a build a few months ago and vowed never to go anywhere near it again - mounting the fan nearly drove me up the wall. I wish manufacturers could come up with a decent fan mounting system, like the Arctic Cooling 13 does, rather than spring-clips.

All good advice peoples. I think I might wait for the 212+ to crop up on Today Only. My Case has a cut out bit for easy access to the CPU socket so it shouldn't be a problem. Amazon had it for like £15 a couple of weeks ago but its shot up to about £28 now

Scan offer is £20 ex vat for free postage so you will have to spend more or go elsewhere.

The CM212+ is a very good cooler but another good one that is smaller is the Xigmatek Nepartak S983 £16 at scan but can be had on ebay for £10 delivered and then get cashback with quidco etc. cant remember how it fits for intel as I have only fitted them for AMD rigs. (Will look after when I get home for you :) )

I just checked and they use the standard plastic push pins .

The best place to look for cooelr reviews (as well as hexus) is www.frostytech.com all the do is review heatsinks etc and are very thourough with it. The only problem is they are a US based site and will have reviews of heatsinks you cant get over here.

Well I didn't have any issue with the spring clips on my hyper 212+ once I got them on the right way round.

however I did fit it outside the case, which I'd pretty much advise anyone do when fitting a cpu cooler anyway.

Unless you've got a removable motherboard tray, then the case is going to get in the way not just with the fitting but also giving it a good eyeball to check it's seated correctly.

You can then use the cooler as a handle when fitting the motherboard to actually make it easier to fit. ;)

A little over your £20 but the corsair A50 is also a good sub £25 option http://www.scan.co.uk/products/corsa...156-amdam2-am3
Personally I don't think the performance is quite as good as the hyper212+, but it's still good and it does have a very nice clip on fan housing, which is nicer than the wire clips.

however as Biscuit said it's £20 ex VAT not inc VAT
http://forums.hexus.net/scan-care-he...0-07-08-a.html so you actually need to spend about £24 anyway.

If you need something small to make up the cost I can fully suggest the Silverstone 120mm fan filters http://www.scan.co.uk/products/silve...and-filter-kit
If you've got a case with 120mm side panel fan mounting points (even if you have to side panel fan) then putting filters on them can make a big difference to the amount of dust that gets into your pc. ;)

If you do order and need to make the cost up I want one of the silverstone fan filters that pob linked to. ill cover the postage costs for sending it to me as well :)