Heatsink Recommendations

Tsorovan · Post by **Tsorovan** » Thu Apr 03, 2003 10:03 am

Currently, I have a ghastly CoolerMaster something-or-other with a highly annoying 60 x 15mm fan that sounds like a vacuum cleaner (it sounds progressively worse when slowed down), plus it doesn't cool my Athlon XP 1600+ that well. I'm running about 48°C idle and 55°C at full load (prime95). Ambient room temp. is an guesstimated 20-22°C. No case fans or the like.

I'm wanting to silent this computer down, and the first step is of course the CPU HSF.

I've been planning on using a good HSF with a Panaflo, hopefully undervolted.

The SLK-800 or AX-7 are nice yes, but sadly very expensive and a tad difficult to attain here in Sweden. I recently read the review of the innocuously named Spire FalconRock II on www.dansdata.com. It seems like a damn good heatsink for almost no money (found it for 139 SEK ~=15€ ~= $16) at all. Plus, it's been said the included fan is pretty damn quiet, but Panaflo will be required in testing of course.

That's the only HS I've found that seems good at low airflow applications, plus at a very competitive price. Do you have any other recommendations of heatsinks I should check out? Zalman...well, from what I've read and heard at least the flower sinks seem terribly overrated, and Thermaltake and Vantec's offerings don't seem to be much to hang in the christmas tree either.

I don't care that much for what fan is on it, as I'll probably replace it with a Panaflo L1A anyway. Also, it doesn't have to be totally silent right now, I just want to be able to sleep at night without ear plugs :|

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Oh, on a related note, good cooling solution for a Gainward Ti4200? I'm a bit wary of passive cooling (Zalman HP-80), plus it's about 40 bucks here, so I was thinking of getting a decently sized, semi low-profile heatsink that I can attach to the vid card without having to spend 50 hours trying to come up with a custom fastening method, and cool it with a Panaflo. I'm not overclocking it much, and I'm sufficiently certain that it would be possible to cool it well with a good heatsink and an undervolted Panaflo without creating much noise at all. Does anyone know of any heatsinks for an application like this? I haven't found one yet...

Thanks for any help.

"Sleep is too quiet..." Yeah right, it's too painful, that's what it is.

ez2remember · Post by **ez2remember** » Thu Apr 03, 2003 10:40 am

I don't know much about CPU HS available in Sweden, but with regards to you Geforce Ti4200, you can probably get away removing the tiny fan and have either a Panaflo 80mm mounted parrallel @5v or @7v to the HS. Mount this using a Zalman bracket or similar, or come up with your own solution it can't be too difficult. This is what I am doing on my Radeon 8500 which does not run as hot as your graphics card, but it has the tinniest of HS (approx 4.5cm x 4.5cm x 0.5cm) and its rock stable. Hopefully you have a fairly large HS on your graphics.

Try it, no harm if it's unstable you could always go back and screw on the tiny fan, but I think it should be sufficent.

Tsorovan · Post by **Tsorovan** » Thu Apr 03, 2003 1:41 pm

Thanks for the tip. However, Gainward have made their own combined fan and heatsink thing (think 10mm tall Orb-type thingamajig), so I definitely think I'll need an altogether new heatsink.

As to what heatsinks are available here, leave that problem to me, I just want some recommendations :D