Which CPU cooler ~£40?

[ristac]

I have seen the Gelid Tranquillo mentioned more than a few times in system builds and it is on my shopping list: subscribing

[timread]

The Gelid GX-7 is also interesting. Looks like it just came out recently, and is in the ~£40 bracket. There's a review here: http://vr-zone.com/articles/gelid-so...w/13564-1.html. It appears to perform on-par with the Thermaltake Frio, Xigmatek Aegir, Be Quiet Dark Rock Pro C1 on both temperature and noise (and outperforms all of these if you also use Gelid's GX Extreme thermal compound - I guess that pushes the price up a little as that's another £8 for a 3.5g tube).

It doesn't look like the TRUE Rev C comes with the same pressure mounting system as the Venomous X RT. Other than that, it's a very similar design. Only issue with getting 'bare' heatsinks is that adding a single low RPM PWM fan tends to add at least another £7-12, if you're going for the 'usual suspect' quality fans such as Scythe Gentle Typhoons, Gelid Silent Wing, Silverstone APs etc, or even up to £40 for a pair of Noctua NF-P12s.

[foxrocks]

The TRUE RevC is a fair bit cheaper than the Venomous X though. With a fan it should still come in under £40, especially when it's on 'Today Only' at Scan.

Interesting you mention the Frio and Dark Rock together: my understanding was that the Frio was kinda noisy compared to the Dark Rock, though perhaps a tad cooler.

Will take a look at that GX-7, thanks.

[Megalon]

Gelid Tranquillo

I know a couple of people who were happy with this cooler and have even overclocked and got pretty decent temps still. I'm pretty sure Chillblast use this in their silent systems too.

[Pob255]

Why is that some coolers (Artic Cooler Freezer 7 Pro / Coolermaster Hyper 212) costs about £10-12 and others go up to about £40+?

Is there that much difference between them?

Yes and no, it depends on the cooler, the amount of cooling you want and how quiet you want it.
something like the ACF7Pv2 or hyper212+ are great coolers for stock settings or mild overclocks, but if you really want to push your overclocking or keep you system very quiet then I would look at something better.

Most of the options listed are very good, I'd add to it the Coolermaster V6 as a decent sub £40 cooler
And there is the good old Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme (aka TRUE) I'd get an akasa venom or apache fan to go with it for PWM on a scythe gentle typhoon for non-PWM
The Scythe Yasya is pretty good if I remember correctly

Slightly over at £45 but the Antec KUHLER H2O 620 is worth a look.

[Chyronn]

Why is that some coolers (Artic Cooler Freezer 7 Pro / Coolermaster Hyper 212) costs about £10-12 and others go up to about £40+?

Is there that much difference between them?

This is what i'd like to know as well. i've bought the first version of the Arctic Cooler, for a scratch built PC containing a socket 775 QX6800 because it was recommended at the time by Custom PC magazine since those processors run very hot, then i bought the rev2 which allows for more compatibility with 1366, 1156, 1155 and 775. a good stop gap until i get on liquid cooling.

[Noxvayl]

Since this thread has been dug up I thought I'd reply.

...

Most of the options listed are very good, I'd add to it the Coolermaster V6 as a decent sub £40 cooler
And there is the good old Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme (aka TRUE) I'd get an akasa venom or apache fan to go with it for PWM on a scythe gentle typhoon for non-PWM
The Scythe Yasya is pretty good if I remember correctly

...

I use an Enermax Magma with my TRUE and they work brilliantly together. Even under extreme stress(Prime95) my Q9550 CPU @3825Mhz doesn't go above 60 degrees. I would highly recommend that combination as well as using the fans suggested by Pob255

[Megalon]

I use an Enermax Magma with my TRUE and they work brilliantly together. Even under extreme stress(Prime95) my Q9550 CPU @3825Mhz doesn't go above 60 degrees. I would highly recommend that combination as well as using the fans suggested by Pob255

Don't mean to hijack, but wanted to say I was considering liquid cooling myself (H60), for my own build, but the number look pretty good with this combo - Pob suggested a few fans, which ones did you mean specifically?
Cheers.

[Noxvayl]

@ Megalon

The Akasa Venom and Apache fans are very good, probably the best airflow you can get from 120mm fans. The Scythe Gentle Typhoon is also pretty good. I would also have to recommend the Alpenföhn Föhn 120 Wing Boost, I will be getting some of them to replace my more noisy fans.

These are the respective specifications for each fan:
Akasa Venom/Viper - £11.15
Akasa Apache - £10.78
Scythe Gentle Typhoon - £12.94
Enermax Magma - £8.38
Alpenföhn Föhn 120 Wing Boost - £10.78

I chose the Enermax Magma due to it's reported longevity and cheaper price compared to the rest. At high speeds it is quite noisy when attached to your case but you hardly hear it when put on a heatsink. The Scythe Gentle Typhoon is probably the most expensive for the least airflow so I wouldn't get it myself being a cheapskate and all. The Akasa Venom/Viper is probably the highest airflow but also the most noisy, probably worth it with the extra airflow tbh. For a balance between noise and airflow the Akasa Apache is the best, great airflow for low RPM and noise, brilliant option for noise concious people.

So take your pick, prices were taken from Scan.co.uk

PS: I have the first generation Coolermaster CM690 case with 85CFM 140mm fan at the bottom and 2 140mm 45CFM fans at the top providing the airflow from bottom to top. This case is renowned for it's exceptional airflow so you might not achieve similar results.

[Megalon]

Thanks for the comprehensive list
I was thinking of going with the CM690 II originally, but prefer the design of the Fractal R3 - although I'm aware the cooling isn't as good.

Is it possible to remove/turn off the blue lights (LEDS?) on the front of the Coolermaster case do you know?

[Noxvayl]

On my case the only LED's are found on the included fan, so I removed that to get rid of the light. I think it might be the same for the newer ones.

Just to make sure you don't buy too many fans the one spot on the side panel won't fit a 120/140mm fan if you use the TRUE, it's too tall. So you can fit 4x 140mm fans and 2x 120mm in the case.