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Current best air cooler?

K

Kenjiwing

2[H]4U
Joined
Apr 6, 2009
Messages
3,736
Whats the best atm? I always do water but have a friend whos doing a new build.

Thanks,
 
Noctua NH-D14 or Thermalright Silver Arrow - take your pick.

Personally I would go with the Noctua, but that is also due to looks.
 
My two radiator are best.

Lol okay fine. Id say noctua coolers or any of those huge heatpipe coolers.
 
TR Silver Arrow > Noctua NH-D14 (Because of the superior fans), but a few tests rate the opposite

TR Archon is up there as well (with X-bit labs rating the Archon above all else, including the Silver Arrow (which was the old best, and had dethroned the NH-D14 in their rankings)). ---> It's definitely a great single-tower option in push-pull fan config.

Some other heatsinks enter into the equation:

Prolimatech Genesis - for mobo cooling...looks good.

Exotic: Alpenfohn K2 (The biggest damned heatsink I've seen...looks like it should be effective = 8 heatpipe version of the Noctua NH-D14)
 
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I'd go for the Noctua NH-D14 based on looks alone, the silver arrow is ugly as hell, what were they thinking? The difference in performance between the two wouldn't really be much to warrant that horrific color scheme the Silver Arrow has...
 
Ohmycaptain said:
I'd go for the Noctua NH-D14 based on looks alone, the silver arrow is ugly as hell, what were they thinking? The difference in performance between the two wouldn't really be much to warrant that horrific color scheme the Silver Arrow has...
Click to expand...
Noctua fans are just as bad looking IMO.

Personally I use different PWM fans instead of what usually comes with most coolers anyway.
 
Seriously,the NH-D14 is overrated and overpriced.It's designed for low noise operation.The Silver Arrow and Archon are way better than it.

Even the Venomous-X would beat it by using the Archon mounting clip or a simple high pressure mod.
With dual CM ExtraFlo 120mm
CoolerMasterXtraFlo_A2AOCP2.jpg

And with dual Thermalright TY-140
ThermalrightTY-140_A2AOCP2.jpg
 
The Archon is also very tall, and is limited on which cases it will install into. The RV02 is limited to 189mm, the Archon is 170. Probably could squeeze that though, but I wouldn't wanna spend the $ to find out.
 
Depends

Archon is quite good
Silver Arrow is quite good
Noctua NH-D14 is quite good
Noctua NH-C14 is quite good

check out frostytech
 
Interesting to see that coolers like the Megahalems are still within a couple of degrees of the current best coolers available. Gotta think they're getting mighty close to the limits of what can be done with the current heatpipe technology. Wonder what we'll be seeing next in the air cooling arena...or maybe water cooled is just becoming inevitable.
 
I was looking at coolers recently because the Gelid Tranquilo from my i3 system turned out to be RMA-fodder (crap performance no matter what I did, almost stock cooler temps). Archon wasn't available in Canada yet, and I wasn't sure if it would squeeze into a Silverstone FT01. I was going to get a Megahalems or Venomous-X, but found a Silver Arrow for not much more at a Canadian e-tailer (significantly cheaper than the NH-D14).

It barely fit in my case (squishes side panel sound deadening a bit), but it's worth it. Cools my 920-D0 at 4.2GHz (HT on) while being very quiet! I wish it came with a 2-1 PWM adapter like the Noctua, but I can make my own.
 
Archon is available in canada, it's available at memory express. They have almost all of thermalright's lineup.
 
Parja said:
Interesting to see that coolers like the Megahalems are still within a couple of degrees of the current best coolers available. Gotta think they're getting mighty close to the limits of what can be done with the current heatpipe technology. Wonder what we'll be seeing next in the air cooling arena...or maybe water cooled is just becoming inevitable.
Click to expand...
The air coolers are pretty much at theirs limits.Maybe we need something like vapor-chamber cooler with new fin design (like going from the heatpipe HSF on the GTX480 to vapor-chamber on the GTX580).
 
The cooler master 212 isn't quite as good as the ones posted above but for 30$ it gets the job done very well.
 
Silent Knight said:
The air coolers are pretty much at theirs limits.Maybe we need something like vapor-chamber cooler with new fin design (like going from the heatpipe HSF on the GTX480 to vapor-chamber on the GTX580).
Click to expand...

Yup, only possible to cram so many heatpipes together to cover the heat spreader. Gonna be interesting to see what direction the cooler companies go in the next couple years.
 
The coolermaster ones are priced well though I'd swap out the fan myself and have done..the actual heatsinks are well priced and perform well.

Surprised about the Gelid that's got faily good reviews surely something not quite right there?

I think the issue is price on some of these coolers they are a bit OTT price wise unless you're doing some mega overclock it's probably not woth it for most folks. Noctua do make nice stuff it's not cheap though. That's why I like the CM ones nice price and buy your own fan still works out a lot cheaper than some top price offerings.
 
The ND-14 has some sonic irregularities that you may or may not here due to the choice in different fans.
So the silver arrow is your best bet, the archon is a close second in my own tests. (As in differences were 2c at most on a 4.3 ghz i7 930).
What's astounding about the silver arrow, is the noise, or rather the lack of it. It doesn't compare to high end watecooling, and it probably won't beat an h100... but for the money (often well under 80 dollars shipped).. it's a great cooler.

Alternatively, the hyper 212 is a great value, as is Cogage Tru... there are alot of great options for all budgets.
 
Going by the HardOCP review the ZEROtherm ZT-10D Smart 120mm looks hard to beat at the price. Am I missing something?
 
HAHA, ok that thing LOOKS huge in that pic.

But when I look it up, it's 222mm diameter, 132mm tall, and only 783 grams. That's still huge, but lighter than expected. I don't know the specs on the Alp. K2, but it's taller, and I'd imagine a bit heavier as well. Equipped with all 3 fans, the K2 would form a cube-like shape, and I'm wondering if the volume of that cube might exceed the cylindrical volume of this heatsink...not sure... but that's irrelevant.

You've found a heatsink that occupies more space.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cases/display/nofen-set-a40_5.html#sect0 - This thing performs worse, passively, than the thermalright HR-02, which was recently apparently $40 with the included TY-140 fan and new "Macho" name (ridiculous deal).
 
How does the noise on an ND-14 and the Silver Arrow compare in real world usage? For comparison sake, I am running a 1200rpm Scythe S-Flex on my TRUE-120 for the last few years (constantly at 1200rpm) and I am fine with that level, it is hard to hear over ambient noise in my P182.
 
The 140mm fans push more air at any given speed so they should be quieter since you can run them at a lower rate most of the time. That Silver Arrow is pretty kick ass, I think I'll get that next when the next gen of CPUs hit.
 
Well, since they all perform pretty close enough, it really depends on the case and your motherboard. With the Archon, although it's a taller heatsink, it's thinner profile does allow the use of all of the ram slots in most motherboards. Whereas with the Silver Arrow, although a shorter heatsink (in height), but it's wider and in many motherboards it tends to block at least 1 memory slot, and sometimes more.
 
Parja said:
Yup, only possible to cram so many heatpipes together to cover the heat spreader. Gonna be interesting to see what direction the cooler companies go in the next couple years.
Click to expand...

I don't know if they've taken the twin towers concept to its fullest potential. I suspect we'll see a lot of variations there to squeeze out a few more degrees there. The Deepcool Assassin comes to mind: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Deepcool-Prepares-Assassin-Twin-Tower-CPU-Cooler-200311.shtml
 
I've read elsewhere that Deepcool distributes some of Alpenfohn's heatsinks in North America. (Or is it the other way around, with Alp. distributing Deepcool's products?) If you look up the Alpenfohn K2 (which I mentioned earlier in this thread), it's the same (or a very similar) heatsink.

I believe they can squeeze out a few more degrees...but realistically, this heatsink is just an 8-pipe NH-D14 (should work better by virtue of its size).
 
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There's also the diamond pattern that's hinted to increase performance, but who knows.
 
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