[homerdog]

I'm not going to overclock, just want something quiet and not monstrously enormous like most aftermarket coolers seem to be (120mm fan wtf?). I love my Ninja Mini but definitely wouldn't want anything bigger.

Any suggestions?

[green.pixel]

There was a recent test on Hexus:
http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/coolin...er-group-test/


Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 seems like a good choice for what you need.

[Malo]

They all look quite monstrous! I've been considering a cooler as well for my i5-3570k as @ 4.2Ghz it's reaching 85-90 under full load on stock cooler and I'd like to keep it around 60-70. Nice reviews though, thanks. Food for thought, have to see which one could possibly fit in my system.

[homerdog]

Originally Posted by Malo

They all look quite monstrous!

Yeah, it's hard to visualize just how massive these things are without a point of reference or seeing it in person.

This may be a dumb question but will a LGA775 cooler fit on the 1155 socket? It looks the same but I dunno if the pins would line up. If so I'll use my awesome Ninja Mini.

[Dr Evil]

Originally Posted by Malo

I've been considering a cooler as well for my i5-3570k as @ 4.2Ghz it's reaching 85-90 under full load on stock cooler and I'd like to keep it around 60-70

It's a real shame that Intel gimped the Ivy Bridge CPUs with a sub par heat transfer solution. I'm not talking about the stock cooler, but the connection from the chip to the heat spreader. Sandy Bridge CPUs used to have a fluxless solder between the chip and the heat spreader, but with the Ivy Bridges they started using low quality thermal paste, which has much poorer performance.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/14/i...thermal-paste/

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Originally Posted by Dr Evil

It's a real shame that Intel gimped the Ivy Bridge CPUs with a sub par heat transfer solution. I'm not talking about the stock cooler, but the connection from the chip to the heat spreader. Sandy Bridge CPUs used to have a fluxless solder between the chip and the heat spreader, but with the Ivy Bridges they started using low quality thermal paste, which has much poorer performance.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/14/i...thermal-paste/

If you're a brave soul, you can cut the heat spreader off, clean the chip/spreader, and reapply a decent thermal paste. This can often drop 5-10 degrees off your chip temperature.

I can't understand why Intel would put out a cutting edge chip process, encourage overclocking with unlocked versions, and then use such a downright shitty thermal interface between the chip and the spreader. It's like selling a great car with crappy, incorrectly fitted tyres that are the wrong size.

[Dr Evil]

Originally Posted by Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.

If you're a brave soul, you can cut the heat spreader off, clean the chip/spreader, and reapply a decent thermal paste. This can often drop 5-10 degrees off your chip temperature.

Yeah I would consider doing that if I had the chip, but voiding the warranty and risking the chip in the process isn't great

I can't understand why Intel would put out a cutting edge chip process, encourage overclocking with unlocked versions, and then use such a downright shitty thermal interface between the chip and the spreader. It's like selling a great car with crappy, incorrectly fitted tyres that are the wrong size.

It's very annoying that's for sure. Is this paste method cheaper to make? Perhaps while they have the k-models, they still want to reduce the maximum obtainable OC and the performance difference it gives compared to the stock models for various reasons. Putting brakes on Ivy now, might boost Haswell sales later etc. Perhaps it's a one way to bring performance gains in the future, to improve the aspect they now gimped or perhaps they just want to have tighter reign on the operating frequencies of these chips?

Once a company has a overly strong position in the market, shit like this starts to pop up. Why sell the best possible product when you can sell smaller increments? Ivy basically is not much more than a pipe cleaner for Haswell anyway. A good chip, but Sandy is pretty much the same and OC's much better.

To be fair the paste is not the only issue for the higher temps and poor OC, the smaller die in itself poses challenges to get the heat out of it, but that's still not a valid reason to gimp the transfer solution, more like they should have put more effort into countering that effect, if engineering the best possible product was at the top of the priority list.

[green.pixel]

Originally Posted by Malo

They all look quite monstrous! I've been considering a cooler as well for my i5-3570k as @ 4.2Ghz it's reaching 85-90 under full load on stock cooler and I'd like to keep it around 60-70. Nice reviews though, thanks. Food for thought, have to see which one could possibly fit in my system.

Arctic Freezer i30 also seems like a good choice:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/201...r-i30-review/1

[homerdog]

^ That seems to weight almost a kg with a 12cm fan.

[green.pixel]

Well, if someone wants higher end air cooling solution, the bigger heatsinks are the only option.

[Malo]

I think I'm going to pick up that suggested Arctic Freezer 13. It's actually only 130mm high which is perfect for my case. A standard 160mm would be basically pressing against the cover. So thanks for the suggestions folks.

[Malo]

Well installed it today and without any burn-in period, temps on intelburntest are 20-25 degrees lower than previous. I'm happy.

[homerdog]

Although the stock cooler seemed really cheap and flimsy, I can't claim to have noticed it making any significant amount of noise thus far, and the CPU stays cool enough. This might be the first stock cooler that I end up keeping.