In a month or so, I'm hoping to start a build around an i5-2500K. A bit of research says that 4.5GHz is a perfectly reasonable overclock. Considering that, I'm looking for a decent cooler to keep it under control... not that it's supposed to be a particularly difficult task.

Anyone have advice? After some research, I've got some nice candidates:

CoolerMaster Hyper 212+ [$30] : Default Answer. Good Value.
Titan Fenrir [$46] : Impressive performance. Moderate price.
Gelid Tranquillo [$40] : Good performance. Good price.
Thermalright Venomous-X [$65] : The TRUE for socket 1155.
Thermalright Archon [$70] : Pricey. Outstanding performance. Possibly too tall.

I don't care much about fan quality on any of them, as I've got no problem replacing them with more suitable options (likely: Scythe Kama FLEX PWM or Nexus Real Silent PWM).

I don't doubt that any of them would accomplish the task, but I'd like to be able to run at lower temperatures to reduce the need for other fans. The Hyper 212+ is the undisputed king of value. I don't really trust FrostyTech, but even bit-tech suggests the Fenrir is a better cooler than the Hyper 212+. Of course, it is a direct-touch type. I've got one of those now and TIM application is a pain. The Gelid and Thermalrights use standard block surfaces. The Gelid is cheaper, and the Thermalrights have impeccable build quality.

Obviously, I expect plenty of people to agree with the Hyper 212+. The question in my mind is this: Over the expected six-year life of the build, is it worth the extra $10-40 to get a higher performing heatsink? I don't know if I can justify the Archon, but the others would still fit in my budget.

Also: for those suggesting the Hyper 212+, is it worth running a push-pull configuration if I have an exhaust case fan just a couple inches behind the CPU?

Have you considered a Scythe Mugen 2 in push-pull? It keeps my hexacore at room temperature even when locked at 3GHz.

As for push-pull with an exhaust fan, I find it's beneficial from a noise standpoint because 3 fans pushing air in a straight line won't have to spin as fast as just 2 to move the same amount of air.

I knew someone was going to suggest that one too. Yeah, I looked at it and its HUGE. I had been sort of trying to force myself not to look at the Mugen and the DH-14 due to their size. Maybe that was unfair of me. I do plan on using 16GB of RAM, but I'll be buying it all at once, so I shouldn't have to worry about pulling the heatsink to install new RAM.


This is what I was curious about. Most cases I'm looking at have top-panel exhaust fans, but with three fans in a row on across the top, I'd think you'd want to either block the top, or use a forward-position on the top panel as an air intake to feed the jet stream going across the CPU. I don't doubt it would work, but is noise still manageable? How slow can you run the fans?

Afaik 212 is also direct touch , so if your trying to avoid DT then the 212 is out. Still I think it's a very good cooler for the price.

Termalright have great coolers. I'm using TRUE on i7 2600k and Ultima 90 on Q6600 both are great and work well with low speed fans (500-600 rpm). New models seem to be even better judging from reviews. mounting is very easy and secure.

@4.5 the 2500k is going to be fairly easy to cool IMO. I think push pull is overkill unless you going for room temps, still there is noting wrong with a CPU running at 40s during normal daily tasks.

Case setup is just as important as cooler, what case are you looking at?

One of the PC hardware dealers in my locality is offered a 4.7Ghz overclocked Core i5 2500K as part of a pre-built gaming system. The cooler they are using is the Be Quiet Dark Rock, which interestingly is not direct touch but uses a sold base plate. A couple of UK reviews suggest that the Dark Rock is an excellent performer and fairly quiet but finding one outside Europe might be another matter. It is one of those black chrome coolers which partially explains the name I guess.

I'm not really trying to avoid them (they're everywhere!), but I'm currently using a Xigmatek HDT-S1283 on an Intel Q9450. It's a decent cooler, but I reapplied the TIM four or five times before I was confident that I was getting good coverage. Too many of the direct-touch models have mediocre surface quality.


I know. I recognize I'm being a bit picky. My current case (P182) doesn't cool as well as I had hoped (45-65 degrees), due mostly to a lack of fresh air making it to the CPU area. It would be nice if I could idle below 40, but I'm not going to buy multiple heatsinks searching for it. I'd rather just pick a nice heatsink and go with it.


Agreed. I won't be using a P183, as my wife and I deemed it too ugly to sit in a prominent location in our living room. The leading candidates are the Fractal Design Arc Midi, the Coolermaster 690 II Advanced, Fractal Design Define R3, and the Lian Li PC-9F. More info here.

Most of them (notably not the Define R3) use a fairly open mesh front panel, with one or more openings in the top panel. I'll be using a GTX 560Ti (probably the MSI Twin-Frozr II), so part of the plan would be to ensure that air from the front of the case gets ducted to the upper half of the enclosure. The overall feel is probably going to be closer to the low-resistance strategy than the dampen-and-baffle strategy, if only to try something new.

Xigmatec HDT-1283 or "Gaia" D1283 would be acceptable for this. They come with enough fan mounts to "push pull" if you so desire. According to SPCR tests, they are in the elite class for cooling.

ETA: I see you already have one. Why not try it on the new one? I am not sure that filling the gaps with TIM are really that necessary, is it? As long as the heatpipes are making good contact...

I had considered the Gaia, but it seems to be more expensive than the Hyper 212+ and the only review I've seen of it, but it as equivalent to the Gelid Tranquillo. Given that, I'd prefer the Tranquillo's mounting as I got really annoyed with the HDT-S1283's mounting system as it only worked with open corners and even then, I still couldn't get it to work with the open-cornered fan I got to work with it. I ended up modding some metal clips to do the job.

Of course, if you have other experience, then please share. What I'd really like is to hear positive/negatives from people who've worked with this.


Because I'm still using it. When I finish the new build, it will be my new Windows computer and the Q9450/HDT-S1283 build will become my Linux server.


No, you're very much right. However, when I was doing some TIM spread tests (I wish I had taken photos), I was having trouble with the TIM spreading evenly. It seemed to be spreading into cracks rather than along the heatpipes. In order to get a good spread pattern: I rubbed the TIM (MX-2) into the surface, then wiped the excess off, then reapplied in the center to fill in the cracks between heat pipes, then wiped the excess again (against the heatpipe "grain"), and finally placed three short lines across the heat pipes. That lowered temps from a straight 3-lines method by 4-7 degrees. It worked, but it was a pain.

Hyper 212 is $35 and has 4 heatpipes

Gaia is $30 and has 3 heatpipes
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

I liked the mounting system. I have open cornered fans so i guess I'm not used to seeing closed-corner fans. I liked the included bolt-through mounting kit included with the Gaia. The CPU I have underneath it isn't particularly hot, and I can't overclock it, so hard for to me to tell how effective it is. It's extremely similar to the HDT-1283 though except for the new mounting system, from what I can tell.

IIRC I saw somewhere that some of the 4-heatpipe coolers are actually worse because the 2 outer heatpipes don't make good contact with the CPU?

The corner issue is a small one now that I know to care about it. I still prefer clips and rubber strips for the easy fan replacement, but its not a big issue. I might have liked the S1283 better if I had gotten the actual bolt-through kit put out by Xigmatek for it. Instead, I got a third party bolt-through kit (TR, i think) and I don't know that it fit all that well.

Did you mount yours on a 1155/1156? How would you rate the easiness of mounting? I don't plan on having to mount it more than once, but usually an easy mount means there's less chance to screw something up.



Yes, but it depends on the geometry of the silicon in the chip. If I remember correctly, the Core2 8xxx/9xxx chips had a die that was longer than it was wide. That meant that the heat wasn't evenly distributed across the heat spreader and if it lined up with the heat pipes, then the outer two heat pipes were touching only the coolest part of the chip. With three pipes, you spread the bulk of the load across 3 pipes, not just two.

However, that might have changed for the Sandy Bridge chips. I haven't seen diagrams on the size/position of the die on the heat spreader. The best we can say is that FrostyTech's completely uniform CPU-simulator does not match what is actually seen with real CPUs. At the very least, heat is centrally concentrated, and that might give an advantage to heat sinks with certain combinations of heat pipe widths and counts.

Just FYI Hyper 212 is $21

Other than price, what's wrong with the Thermalright HR-02?

Nothing really. But at $70, its equivalent in price and performance with the Archon, which seems to be easier to find, and takes up less space in a case. The HR-02 would be a drop-in replacement for it if the Archon didn't fit in the case I picked.

I know the HR-02 is great for passive cooling, but from what I've seen, its not really great enough when you're overclocking. $70 is a lot to gamble without specific results to back it up.

Well, just as an experiment, I removed the GAIA from my wife's computer last night. The contact patch was excellent and covered the entire CPU heat spreader. I just applied a thin layer of AS-5 onto the CPU with a razor blade last time. I reinstalled the HS/F and it was kind of a bit more of a pain. I had to remove the memory and video card to get my fingers in there. But still, it was doable, and without any tools.

Mounting system: I installed on an AM2 but it's similar for 775/1155/1156. You have a steel backplate that has a generous 1/8" foam mat stuck to the back. For the intel CPUs there is a removable portion in the middle for whatever reason. You stick the backplate on and then poke the screws through the motherboard. On the opposite side (top side) you put paper washers over the screws. Then there are some barrel nuts with an inner flange you screw down on the bolts. This inner flange snugs up into the holes in the motherboard, giving it a tight fit. I like this, it ensures proper alignment. Then there are a couple different plates you can attach to base of the cooler, you put the cooler/plate combo over the bolts, and then secure them with some provided thumbscrews. It puts some pretty good tension on there but it's not too bad, and it was easy for me to get them to 100%.

I tried running prime95 to see where my temps were at. It looks like my idle temp was around 22C, and my full load approached 48C. This is with the stock fan at ~1000 rpm. I think a Scythe slipstream at 800 rpm is my next project. I also am going to see how far I can undervolt the CPU.

For some reason that computer really did not like prime 95, whereas my sig computer doesn't care about it.

I've got Thermalright SilverArrow on my i5 2500k OCed @4.6 GHz, and the fans barely move. It's only when I've been gaming for a few hours that the fans start up (a little I can hear) and that is because of my GTX580 pumping heat and heating up the room . Which can be a bit noisy with the airflow. Got to put that gtx580 on water next time I have money.

But the silverarrow is damn huge, barely fit in my mid-tower budget case.

/sigh going for cheap cases always backfires at me. Need to mod it but damn can't be bothered right now.

I considered the Silver Arrow, but due to price and size and similar performance, I favored the Archon. Was that a bad decision?

Either way, it looks like my case will be either a CM 690 II Advanced or a Fractal Design Arc Midi. Both of those should fit either the Archon or the Silver Arrow.

Does anyone know if the stock Thermalright fans are worth keeping?

The fractal design arc looks really good. I like it. The690ii on the other hand ... Not.

Now that my Sandy Bridge on its way, I find this thread most useful. Thank you!

Is there anything more you want to know? I've done stupid amounts of research. Now, its just research and not personal experience, but I figure if someone else benefits from the hours I spent looking around the web, then it might not have been as wasteful.

I know its the wrong forum, but what don't you like about the 690 II? (Maybe I'll ask this in the Cases Forum.... hmm).

I think he's talking just about aesthethical appearance.



De gustibus...

The Archon looks good, I took the SA because they had it here and it is the top performer. Just me not holding back , but it is HUGE ^_^ (was a bit surprised just how HUGE). The stock fan is all good.

As for case stock fans, well I seem to always remove them and install either Nexus or Scythe ones instead. Seem to be unlucky with the stock case fans always some damn clicking noise on them .

Oh... did I mention how HUGE the SA is?

Yeah appearance is significant. And so is build quality and it typically goes hand in hand with the ability to make a computer quiet. Iv had alot of experience with 690 and some with 690ii and I personally think they both have a somewhat flimsy feel to them. HDD cages tend to vibrate and side panels are very thin - if they get slightly bent it is very difficult to put them back into place. The case has cheap plastic frame... I'm really used to using Antec cases - thick steel proper fit and rubber mounted HDDs are what I consider standard.

The Arc Midi definitely wins there. I just wish they would finally release the thing for sale.

Hmm. I'll be sure to take that into consideration. To be honest, I already realized that the CM 690 II was a clear runner-up to the Arc Midi. If not, I would have bought a case already. Instead, I'm dragging out the build, hoping that Fractal Design will release the Arc Midi before I give up on them. The CM 690 II was the case which seemed to be a suitable alternative if the Arc wasn't going to show up before summer. Maybe I should find another alternative.

No, not the P183. My wife and I already agreed its not attractive enough to sit in the living room. I considered the 650D, but its got 200mm fans which are nearly impossible to replace. Lian-Li PC-9F + Acoustipak for the aluminum?

Have you thought about any of the Nexus cases?
http://www.nexustek.nl/NXS-silentcases.htm
http://www.endpcnoise.com/cgi-bin/e/std ... illar.html $89

I had looked at the Prominent 5. It's not bad, but there's nothing about it that really seems to make it better than other options. It's cable management is better than my P182, but not as good as most other cases in its price range. It's decent, but I couldn't say that it was better than a few other options.

The Caterpillar is just... a bit weird. I've always had trouble figuring out the motherboard orientation. I think it uses a 180 degree rotation of an ATX, which is clever, but it means that the CPU hangs out by the PSU. I have a X-650, and since there is no vent in the bottom of the case, it would have to be mounted upside-down and fight to draw air directly off a Venomous-X in push-pull. At the same time, the graphics card is stuck at the top of the case without any vents to help it. I'm hoping to get the MSI GTX-560 Ti, which vents into the case. I'd think this would just turn the top of the case into a sauna with no good way for me to clear it. It's a clever case and I think it would work well for some builds... just not mine.

I have a 3-heatpipe Xigmatek S1283 and don't have any problems with even contact. My AMD 240e runs extremely cool (Asus mb says 20 C at idle, but that my be a slight exaggeration). Believe it or not I don't even have a fan on my S1283 (but top case fan on P180 Mini is nearby).

However, I would strongly recommend a paste such as Ceramique, or Artic Cooling MX4, because they spread much better than AS5 (which is more suseptable to installation error). I suspect this is where the wide variation in user experiences comes from.

Thank you for kind offer. My choice had to limit good, reputable cooler which I could get with-in 3 days delivered when ordered and would not bankrupt me. That left me just few options and I went for Prolimatech Armageddon which was on sale around 2/3 of the native price, making it considerable cheaper than Megahalems and cheaper than Scythe Mugen 2, Ninja 2 or Yasuya. I already had few 140mm fans on shelf waiting for appropriate time.

So far Armageddon is doing very good job

Here is a relatively new XIGMATEK Aegir SD128264 Mega Killer with 4 direct contact heat pipes.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835233087
Looks promising.

Well, the situation has changed a bit... in that I'm now back where I started.

I found a Venomous X for cheap ($55, no shipping) but after waiting for 3 days on a Charged-not-Shipped order, the vendor cancelled, saying they were out of stock. I've found another vendor that can get me one for $50 + $10 shipping, but they can't ship it before I leave for vacation (Saturday). Who knows if I'll be able to get that price in two weeks.

So, I'm back to square one. However, I do know more about the rest of my hardware. My new default case choice is the 650D. I've got one ordered for $170 + free 2 day shipping (...er... that is, two days after the 2-3 weeks it takes for it to come back in stock). If the Arc Midi can beat that, then I'll cancel. If not, then Fractal Design lost out on a sale.

The rest of the hardware is set. I broke down and bought the 2600K (instead of the 2500K) because I found a deal that put the price difference as a little less than $50. The Mobo is an ASUS P8P67, and I've opted for a Gigabyte GTX-560 Ti (the OC version, not the SOC). From what I've seen, the MSI version had slightly better temperatures at load, but worse noise, and it vented most of its air into the case. The Gigabyte should vent a large part of its air out the back of the case. I've never had a Gigabyte video card (or... anything else), so I'm hoping I don't regret it. The point here is that I'm trying to reduce the overall case temperature.

With that in mind, the 650D (or Arc Midi) will have a 140mm front intake (slight mod required on 650D) blowing toward the video card. Some of that air should get pulled up to the CPU area. I'm still leaning toward a push-pull configuration to maximize the effectiveness, so these both look promising:

Thermalright Archon in push/pull (Spare 140mm used as case exhaust)
Thermalright MUX-120 in push/pull

I already have a pair of Noiseblocker BlackSilentPro PWMs waiting for either of these. I like the Archon and MUX for behaving better around the RAM slots (I will be filling all four with Ripjaws X). Of course, there is still:

Thermalright Venomous-X in push/pull

Now, I'll admit that shows a strong Thermalright bias, but I'm having some issues finding other brands making socket 1155 coolers that don't block the first RAM slot (ignoring Cogage).

So, of the group, the MUX-120 is the cheapest and can be almost guaranteed not to interfere with the Ripjaws. I've heard both excellent and mediocre reviews of it. Should I really care? Various reviews keep saying that the 2600K just doesn't need aggressive cooling at 4.5GHz (1.3V). People report pulling it off with the stock cooler. I'd think the MUX would be good enough to beat that.

At the same time, I can pick up an Archon for about $75, which will save me the $15 I would have spent on a case exhaust fan. At an effective price of $60, it would be only $5-7 more than the MUX and about the same price as a Venomous-X.

Any further opinions? Or am I just flailing now?