I've noticed one major issue that affects me when recommending a cheap heatsink to someone who's not a huge computer addict, there's really not many choices out there. I can look down the sprc recommendations list and almost every heatsink is over $30 and usually around $50. The number of people who don't read this site that are willing to drop $50+ on something to cool their $70-150 cpu is pretty low.
It's basically left me with recommending the CNPS7000B-ALCU as an easy beginners choice of having a full package of fan, heatsink, fan controller for under $30. Not to mention it's actually within weight specifications and pretty small. I was really disappointed that the CNPS8000 turned out to be so poor and overpriced. It seems rather bizarre that I'm stuck to a 2 year old heatsink in the under $30 market when recommending anything. The Arctic Cooling Alpine series looks somewhat interesting, but I'm definitely not comfortable with recommending that over the Zalman.
Hopefully we'll see some more good budget heatsink/fan packages out there for less serious silencers. If anyone has seen anything wthat beats the zalman for the price, I'd love for something else to recommend to people. I think the one company missing the boat is thermalright, they have some of the best heatsinks, but the prices tend to be higher and there's no newbie-friendly packages.
Lack of Full Featured Quiet Budget Heatsink Selection
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I think you kinda missed the point of my post, it's not regarding myself, it's regarding easy and cheap choices for people out there. There people would not like to spend more and I would also NOT want to make them spend more. The main concern I have is the Alpine obviously isn't designed to handle a large amount of heat, I have no idea what poor thermal conditions any person may have.andyb wrote:If you are using an AMD system, then the Alpine is highly recommended, its cheap, quiet and cools better than the AMD retail HS/F.
If you want cooler and quieter then you are going to need to spend more cash. The Alpine is very good value for money for an aftermarket HS/F.
Andy
Umm... Good heatsinks are expensive. Some decent heatsinks, including but not limited to the AC Alpine, the Zalman 7000, and the Scythe Katana are affordable. They are obviously not going to perform as well, and if you want fullproofness in all cases and conditions, a Ninja does the trick.The main concern I have is the Alpine obviously isn't designed to handle a large amount of heat, I have no idea what poor thermal conditions any person may have.
There is no magical heatsink that does the trick for everyone, and silencing a computer is not as easy as shopping at IKEA. If you want to cut costs, you have to analyse the situation and pick components wisely. Always true in all optimisation projects.
Almost, but unfortunately a bit too simple.andyb wrote: The VERY good ones, that are expensive.
The good ones that are inexpensive.
And the crap that you get when you buy your CPU.
The heatsink that you get with your CPU when buying the boxed variety isn't actually that bad most of the time. It's usually the fan that is the actual problem. Many of the cheap 3rd party heatsinks actually cool worse then the stock heatsink. Thus I've sometimes recommended mounting a new fan on the stock Intel or AMD heatsink. Atleast if the budget is really a consern.
Last edited by kesv on Tue Nov 28, 2006 9:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
I agree, the stock hsfs are not too shabby. For those using 15mm thick fans all you need is a bigger 25mm thick fan for a large performance boost.
Silently cooling a T-Bred was no problem, and I doubt it would be with undervolted A64/Core2Duo.
Silently cooling a T-Bred was no problem, and I doubt it would be with undervolted A64/Core2Duo.
Those don't even have a name. Go walk into some computer shop with a little bit of variety, look at some black CoolerMaster boxes containing what looks like stock Athlon HSFs.andyb wrote:Kesv, can you name some of those cheap aftermarket heatsinks that are worse than the stock ones.
Andy
You forgot a few other categories thereandyb wrote:Hey Qviri, I have shopped in Ikea, heatsink buying is easier and more fun
Qviri has a very good point, heatsinks only fall into 3 categories.
The VERY good ones, that are expensive.
The good ones that are inexpensive.
And the crap that you get when you buy your CPU.
Andy
Average ones that are expensive
Terrible ones that are still expensive
Not so good ones that are inexpensive
Average heatsinks with noisy fans for Stock cpus
I think you focused on the best case scenarios there. Anyways all this is making me think is that the cnps7000b stays as the safest choice to recommend. The scythe katana looks very interesting, but the height, more challenging installation and lack of fan controller are minuses.
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Felger Carbon
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CM Hyper TX is worth a mention. Seems to have good reviews. At 650~1800rpm it can't be too loud
AC Freezer has noise-performance ratio close to the CNPS-7000. $21 USD is certainly cheap
TR XP-90 should have its price dropped by alot now compared to the past
And ZM CNPS-7000, still good by today's standard, cheap with good low-airflow performance, small and light, damn I love this cooler, and its cheap China replicas floating around.
Those (China replicas) have to be the cheapest yet good performing HSFs out there. Get it on your next trip to China. Or contact importers of wierd (exotic) PC stuff. My country has one or two.
AC Freezer has noise-performance ratio close to the CNPS-7000. $21 USD is certainly cheap
TR XP-90 should have its price dropped by alot now compared to the past
And ZM CNPS-7000, still good by today's standard, cheap with good low-airflow performance, small and light, damn I love this cooler, and its cheap China replicas floating around.
Those (China replicas) have to be the cheapest yet good performing HSFs out there. Get it on your next trip to China. Or contact importers of wierd (exotic) PC stuff. My country has one or two.
Pretty much all that are cheaper than 15€ or so are worse than the heatsink included in the boxed CPU. That same 15€ happens to often be the price difference between the boxed and bulk CPUs. So as a rule of thumb, don't try to go below 15€, you'll get something subpar.andyb wrote:Kesv, can you name some of those cheap aftermarket heatsinks that are worse than the stock ones.
Naturally some of the cheap heatsinks might be as good as the stock version, it's just hard to pick the efficient ones from the mass of cheap noname parts out there. And sometimes you might get lucky and find a chinese copy of some very good heatsink out there that actually works.
The AC Freezer costs around 27€ here so if we are buying the boxed version of a CPU there is still a 12€ price difference. A decent fan costs something around 8-10€ and if we need to pair it with a fanmate we are just at the 12€ boundary or a bit over it.
So I think the pricepoint to target for budget quiet CPU cooling is around 30€. You can either hit it by using the stock heatsink with a new fan+controller combination or by getting one of the aftermarket HSF combinations in that pricerange that have done well in tests.
(Note: prices mentioned are typical for Finland, while the actual prices might differ around the globe, the relative differences between them should be close to same.)