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Ultimate LGA1366 Cooling

S

SlipperyPete

Gawd
Joined
Jul 30, 2004
Messages
541
Hello everyone! I am very excited to be building a new rig after nearly five great years (!) of S939 computing, by far my favorite build to date. I now have all my parts ready for an i7 build except for the cooling.

According to the review here on HardOCP (a site I trust very much, right up there with Anandtech and Tom's), the COGAGE TRUE Spirit is the best cooler you can get (only .5 degrees warmer than the TRU 120 extreme or whatever the hell it is for $80). However this review is more than seven months old and I am wondering if there are any new coolers that are better. All the cooler roundups seem to be many months old. Also they do not include the Thermalright IFX-14, which is a F'in MONSTER, and seems to put out impressive numbers.

Also the indigo extreme thermal paste seems to be the champion TIM, is this the consensus around here? When it comes to cooling I usually spare no expense (especially with a super hot cpu like i7) but things are really getting expensive nowadays, $80+ for a HSF is a little rediculous if you ask me, and then the indigo extreme is another $30 shipped.

I would love to hear your input.
 
If you have the room in your case (at least 6 5/16 inches from the top of the CPU to the side of your case) you might want to look at the CoolerMaster Hyper 212+. It only goes for around $30 and does a great job on my i7 920 with just one fan attached.

I'm letting the mobo control the fan speed and with just a small oc to 3.2GHz Prime95 only hits 80c.

EDIT: I got mine for $29.99 plus sorta free shipping from Amazon with Amazon Prime. (costs me yearly for the service, but I get my stuff in two days and avoid any shipping charges)
 
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Are you set on air? On water I see mid to high 40*c under load. Just a thought.
 
Thanks for the suggestion, I'll look into it. My case is an Antec P160 which is pretty big so space is not a concern.

I am set on air, don't really like the idea of water inside the computer. Not to say it is a bad solution, but I don't do enough checkup / system maintenance to feel comfortable with such a setup.
 
Per your title... the "ultimate LGA 1366 cooling" (air) would currently be the
Noctua NH-D14.

A bit pricey, but the cheapest place I have found it is at Silicon Valley Compucycle:

http://www.svc.com/nh-d14.html

You should do a google for this cooler and look at the reviews for it. It is simply the best air cooler currently available.

And they have it in stock unlike other places... and Newegg wants $20 more for the same exact cooler.

Not sure why people are promoting the CM Hyper 212+ as all the reviews I could find show it giving pretty mediocre performance.

The Noctua Unit on the other hand beats out the Ultra 120 by a few degrees.

At 4Ghz my current setup doesn't even reach 70c when Prime95 loaded with large FFTs. And that was with quite a bit of extra voltage going to the CPU than was needed.

Little bit more data to add: Prime95 In-Place Large FFTs at 3.8Ghz with 1.344v under load - 65c highest temp core with stock fans - 62c with an old 120mm case fan added.

Small FFTs or Blend - 62c highest temp core with stock fans - 60c with an old 120mm case fan added.
 
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Going by the thread title, if you are serious about a high OC, you really need a more modern case. The P160 is nice but if you intend to OC that i7 as much as possible with a large tower cooler I recommend a new case that uses the large top mounted fan and side panel options for cooling, bottom mounted power supply and a less obstructed front fan.

Edit. On a whim I looked for a good cheap cheap case. And quality wise the case below is crap compared to the build quality of the P160 which in its day was excellent. Trouble is, for high end OCing, its day is past.

Cooling wise this is far superior (add 2nd top fan) and of course an Antec Nine Hundred Two would be even better etc. etc.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Image...20mm Fan, 1x Top 120mm Fan, 1x Rear 120mm Fan
Of course the case could be changed later after you get it built, its just a hassle.

$30 for TIM - not me.
 
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cyclone3d said:
Not sure why people are promoting the CM Hyper 212+ as all the reviews I could find show it giving pretty mediocre performance.
Click to expand...

Only giving my opinion on the 212+ because it's cheap, quiet, and does cool well.
 
I cannot comment on the air cooler:cool:but Indigo Extreme I have & think it is a good thing. Yes, there are many less expensive ones, but for something that I used once (well twice since I will be dropping a hexa-core in as soon as available) then no big deal.

For several of the pastes & all, there is ample discussion about reapplying after some period of time & shelf life & several other unknowns. I prefer to not completely dismantling things when cleaning up after a year or so ... there will be dust accumulation & you will need to clean up every once in a while.

I used Indigo Extreme for a few reasons. First, I was interested in that technology and it was sort of a professional curiosity.

Second, I am an OCer & am willing to OC to the max and want every edge that I can get. Well, ok ... no LN2 or Peltiers ... my OC needs to be good for many days at near 100% CPU use with my software.

Third, $20 versus $10 BFD!!! for some kind of paste. This not quite the same as $1000 versus $500 for different processors. That extra $10 for Indigo Extreme can be made up by not going WOT from one trffic light to the next. I also studied the company web site and the company. This product is a derivative of something that they made for DOD or DOE. The attempt to go commercial with it is kudos to them.:cool::cool::cool:
 
Stick with the Cogage True Spirit awesome cooler for the price. I run a True 120 eXtreme.
 
Corsair H50? quieter then any HSF mentioned so far, and cools just as good as the top coolers
 
Read sig, I'm running a P160 case.

It survived 24 hrs of prime95 AND intel burn test using 11.5gb of memory. A little note though, I modified my P160 to have a 120mm exhaust fan on the top of the case to take into account the push/pull intake of the Corsair H50. Temps hit high 80's/low 90's under the stress tests for all cores, ambient room temp is around 23C, though for testing with the room door closed, the ambient shot up to 28C.
 
Thanks for all the suggestions, I really appreciate it.

Right now I am leaning towards the True Spirit for its Price/performance ratio verified by the [H]ard review. But I will do more research.

My P160 is modified and I would put it up against most modestly priced modern cases in terms of cooling performance. I have removed the obstructive materials from the exhaust and intake 120mm fans, dremeled holes near the PCI slots for two 38mm fans, and plan on installing another 120mm fan in three 5.25 bays if need be. Air moves in the front, passes over all components, and is exhausted out the back - simple and efficient. Plus the intake fan on the P160 allows for more air throughput than almost any other case I've seen, it is completely unobstructed - this was one of the reasons I liked the case when I bought it. I would never trade my P160 for a cheap Rosewill case. An exhaust fan on the top would be nice, but I actually think it would hinder cooling performance as air flow would not reach all components but simply come in the front and out the top, potentially missing the video card or even the CPU. It's all about the crossflow over the system components.
 
With the H50, the rear exhaust becomes an intake fan, + the front intake, then the upper vent fan + PSU fan become vital. I'm currently running 6 hard drives in the case, 1 ssd and 5 disks. 1 dvd writer, a creative front panel. Not exactly the room to use the 5 1/4 drive bays for more intake. The 260GTX also acts a bit as an intake, but since it's dumping internal ambient temps, the mobo is almost certain to hold 45-50C on average for my setup.

The P160 is not an ideal case, but its gone thru 3 generations of intel chips for me and the i7 will probably be the last considering the heat of running 4.0ghz i7 and the previous 3.6 q6600.
 
I was actually considering buying a different case simply for aesthetic purposes (the P160 is fairly ugly), like a Silverstone or Lian-Li. But I just blew way more cash than I was planning on this upgrade (hoping for another 5 years) so that most likely isn't going to happen. I do appreciate the concern and recommendations though, if the P160 ends up being a toaster I guess I will have to either get higher output fans or a different case altogether. I will let everyone know!
 
It seems the Noctua NH-D14 is the king of air cooling atm, but according to Marc Adam's review of it, it is only .7 degrees C cooler at stock speeds, and is actually beaten by the "budget" COGAGE True Spirit by a whole 1.2 degrees C at overclocked speeds. He also states there are compatibility issues with covering DIMM sockets and space issues in general. He then knocks it for having a horrible price/performance ratio.

However other places on the net show opposite results. They show the Noctua beating the COGAGE's big brother, the TRUE extreme 120 by a whopping 5 degrees C:

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/noctua_nhd14/4.htm

http://www.ocxtreme.org/forumenus/showthread.php?p=80768 (scroll down a bit, independent test)

So this begs the question, are [H]ard's once rock-solid testing methodologies now questionable? I really want to say no, but....
 
SlipperyPete said:
It seems the Noctua NH-D14 is the king of air cooling atm, but according to Marc Adam's review of it, it is only .7 degrees C cooler at stock speeds, and is actually beaten by the "budget" COGAGE True Spirit by a whole 1.2 degrees C at overclocked speeds. He also states there are compatibility issues with covering DIMM sockets and space issues in general. He then knocks it for having a horrible price/performance ratio.

However other places on the net show opposite results. They show the Noctua beating the COGAGE's big brother, the TRUE extreme 120 by a whopping 5 degrees C:

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/noctua_nhd14/4.htm

http://www.ocxtreme.org/forumenus/showthread.php?p=80768 (scroll down a bit, independent test)

So this begs the question, are [H]ard's once rock-solid testing methodologies now questionable? I really want to say no, but....
Click to expand...

I know that some board will have issues with covering DIMM slots with the noctua unit... and I checked that out before I bought it. Even with the front fan moved just one notch up from being perfectly centered, I still have clearance to use all six DIMM slots on my board.

And as for it losing to the other coolers on the [H] review.. either they got a faulty unit, they didn't have it mounted properly, or they didn't have the TIM applied properly.

And I will note that after adding an old 120mm case fan to the back side of it, I was able to drop my Prime95 Large FFT load temps 3c at 3.8Ghz.... from 65 to 62c. This was with having a 1.344-1.352 loaded voltage reading.
 
it does cover memory slot but theres enough clearance to fit memory into every single slot. i'm running 12gb of memory myself.
 
SlipperyPete said:
It seems the Noctua NH-D14 is the king of air cooling atm, but according to Marc Adam's review of it, it is only .7 degrees C cooler at stock speeds, and is actually beaten by the "budget" COGAGE True Spirit by a whole 1.2 degrees C at overclocked speeds. He also states there are compatibility issues with covering DIMM sockets and space issues in general. He then knocks it for having a horrible price/performance ratio.
Click to expand...

Look at the noise levels now and realize that in their test that the Zalman is easily twice as loud as the Noctua fans at full blast. Also, while they do put a temperature probe where Intel specs it, that is a totally different temperature than what the cores see and thus how close you are to thermal throttle. This is what Real Temp and other programs look at. While you can't know exact temperatures using these sensors, you can know how close you are to throttle and with that determine which air cooler is better.

In that respect only the Mega, Noctua NH-D14, and TR have shown their ability to separate themselves from the rest on a constant basis on the i7. Then, if you look at noise, even SPCR chose the Noctua over the Mega based on that it kept temperatures cooler with their reference fan than on the Mega given the same low noise level with their Nexus fan at 12v, 7v, and 5v.

Fershlugg said:
Only giving my opinion on the 212+ because it's cheap, quiet, and does cool well.
Click to expand...

Not knocking your overclock but at those speeds yes even my old OCZ V2 with its 1200 rpm fan would keep my i7 cool and be quite at those volts. Push it to 4Ghz+ and its a different story. My V2 with a Xiggy 1600rpm 120mm would get the same temperatures at 3.33ghz as the NH-D14 got at 4Ghz with more volts. Plus the Noctua did it with less noise.

This is the same point with the Corsair H50. Noctua fans at 900 rpm are quieter than Slip Streams, or whatever other Scythe fan is being used. Sure I could get similar temperatures with my Kaza 3000 rpm on my V2. I tried living with that for a while but the noise drove me mad even though I tried to use the board to slow it down when the system was at idle. When I put the NH-D14 on, I had to hook up two of the three 230mm HAF fans cause the noise they made overpowered the Noctua fans and kind of got on me. Now I'm really in a pinch as my 4870x2 at 40% fan speed overpowers every fan in the case where before it was noticeable but not too noticeably louder than the HAF fans.

Summary: Its about the noise. Mega, NH-D14, and TR (if you don't mind modding the hold down) do it better than all the other options. Bite the the bullet and pay the money for one of them. They will not disappoint.
 
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