Do I need a 3rd party HSF?

M

miochza

Weaksauce
Joined
Mar 17, 2006
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106
I want to get the retail conroe E6600, and overclock it to a reasonable, stable core speed.
I have read that Conroe really is a cool chip, compared to AMD chips. Is it necessary to get a third party heat sink and fan, or will the stock retail Intel one suffice?
 
I got a 3rd party one, just to make sure things stay nice and cool. You can get a good one for like, $35. No reason not to.
 
Yea, I guess... probably should get thermal grease too, then if I'm doing a 3rd party HSF.

I'm thinking:
Zalman CNPS9500-LED
Arctic Silver 5
 
miochza said:
Yea, I guess... probably should get thermal grease too, then if I'm doing a 3rd party HSF.

I'm thinking:
Zalman CNPS9500-LED
Arctic Silver 5
Click to expand...

The AS5 is a gimme, no debate there. And the Zalman is usually regarded as the best 3rd party HSF on the market, but it is also the most expensive. Good choices though. I figure it's an investment if it lets you save $200 on the CPU (extra OC latitude).
 
Zalman cnps-9500 is not regarded as the best aftermarket HSF. It's got a cool LED, but it's not the best.

The top HSF as far as temps go are probably the Tunique Tower, Thermaltake Big Typhoon, and the Scythe Ninja. There are quite a few others that give you much better temps than the Zalman.

However, the Zalman is much lighter than the others, and again it's got a nice bright LED.
 
The Scythe Mine is also much lighter than the others and only costs $35 shipped.
 
Yea, I'm going to be moving this PC back and forth from college, so I don't want a ginormous HSF that will potentially bend my motherboard. Is this a valid concern? Otherwise, I'd get the Big Typhoon instead, there's a weekend sale on newegg + free shipping.
 
A vote for the Scythe Ninja here.

Adding 3rd party cooling is always a good idea.
 
I just read this article at Xbit labs:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/coolers/display/5-cool.html

b11.png


The Zalman actually did better than the Big Typhoon at load?
 
TimothyB said:
I finally decided on the Ninja, it's said to be easy to install and weighs less that others despite it's size due to there being less fins.
Click to expand...
I was at a toss up between the zalman and the ninja. Eventually I got the zalman
 
I was in the same scenerio a month ago. 9500 or Ninja. Decided to get the Ninja and couldnt be happier. Im overclocked to 266 FSB which is about 4GHz(3.990GHz exactly). I idle at 30 and load at 48. Great heatsink.
 
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