What Air Cooler to get?

[BumbleBee]

The mount on my VenomousX is great! Easy install and work's good I did have to pull the MOBO to get the mount installed but I needed to clean my case anyways so ya.

Is the d14 the best air cooler? Since I started clocking I don't like my temp's, I have bad case flow but still think a better cooler would help?

I may try swapping/adding some fan's first but thought I'd ask since this thread is active

buy a new case?

 

[sneekypeet]

a single Phantek fan is louder than both Noctua fans. Thermalright does a better job with their fans but the mounting systems are always more difficult than they need to be. both companies try to come after the king but come up a little short.

Phanteks is a direct rip off! Yes it uses different fans, but the mounting is even exact. So essentially only fan noise is different between Noctua and Phanteks. Even though I don't usually promote copycat builders, Phanteks has a much better color assortment.

As far as the fans go, its nominal in the difference. I mean during usage of either of them, inside the case you aren't going to hear either of them. As far as TR falling a little short, well depends on the cooler. I would take a little tougher install for the benefit of the Silver Arrow's cooling abilities

I'm not trying to be argumentative, its just I have used most coolers on the market, and to me its just like a case, if you don't like the looks, I cant sell it either way I'm coming from the perspective of you really have to nit-pick to find fault with any of the three companies, even though Noctua did it first and Phanteks is riding their wave.

 

[BumbleBee]

the retention plate with the bolt and wrench is stupid

 

[sneekypeet]

on which cooler are we speaking of here, the PHTC14? Or the Thermalright SA?

 

[BumbleBee]

the Silver Arrow has more clearance problems, it's more difficult to install and the fans are even uglier. at least Noctua fans look good with the several white cases on the market.

 

[m1dg3t]

buy a new case?

Wish I could, running it on my rack beside the TV so option's are/were extremely limited

the retention plate with the bolt and wrench is stupid

Work's well for me! The extra mount pressure can be a bitch to apply depnding on setup but worth it IMO. So what is best all out air cooler? D14 or SilverArrow or what? Review info is too scattered/biased, from what I've come across anyways

TIA

 

[Vulpesveritas]

Wish I could, running it on my rack beside the TV so option's are/were extremely limited



Work's well for me! The extra mount pressure can be a bitch to apply depnding on setup but worth it IMO. So what is best all out air cooler? D14 or SilverArrow or what? Review info is too scattered/biased, from what I've come across anyways

TIA

The Phanteks low profile coolers do a bit better than the Noctura ones, and you get color options, but the Noctura fans are slightly quieter. They're the same price, and I don't think you can really go wrong with either.

 

[MilkyWay]

Phanteks PH-TC14 is one of the best performing and looking (comes in different colours) coolers on the market. Noctua literally has a shitty colour scheme. The mounting on the Phanteks takes fucking literally 2 mins, 2 mounts attach to the motherboard easily, then line up and screw the cooler to the mounts with a Philips head scredriver, the fans are attached via metal clip brackets (you could use these clips on any cooler right?). You can position the fan as high as you want to avoid any clearance issues with ram but then the case become a problem if its not wide enough.

Might be a total rip off of 2 other coolers (Silver Arrow and the Noctua) but its a good rip off. I know for a fact it performs as good if not better than its competitors.

I say it would come down to price but negating price the Phanteks is what i would recommend.

 

[Raw]

Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Beholder

Phanteks PH-TC14 is one of the best performing and looking (comes in different colours) coolers on the market. Noctua literally has a shitty colour scheme.

And I say: "Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Beholder" and people have many different opinions.
What may look good to you may look like shit to me!
And as for me in particular, I could really care less about the color scheme. NOT that I think the Noctura C14 looks bad, it doesn't.


To each his own. :shadedshu

 

[GC_PaNzerFIN]

I really like the Prolimatech Megahalems + 2 Noctua P12 fans at 900rpm. Quiet and good performing and IMO looks great. It is also much smaller than the SA or NH-D14 although it is not much worse in terms of cooling performance.

But I couldn't get hands on LGA2011 mounting kit at reasonable timeframe for it so I ordered Noctua NH-D14 SE2011. Looks a bit worse than Mega but I guess the few degrees lower temps make up for it. Through discount it was only 39€ which is a steal!

 

[Capitan Harlock]

if you have large case go with the thermalright archon rev.a high is 170mm, is the cooler i choose to buy in the next months

 

[Raw]

Air Cooler Update - Noctura

Well, I finally got the Noctura C-14 Air Cooler in today and installed it.
It was sweet to install. No issues what-so-ever.
I didn't even have to pull the mobo.

And the temps are unreal cool. The cpu has been no hotter than 128 degrees fahrenheit or 53.33 celcius so far.
And I pushed it with Black Ops on high settings to get that high.
Mind you, the 2500k cpu is stock, no oc yet.
But all in all, I'm very happy with it.

I am running both fans on the unit, I had to pull one 4GB stick out to fit. So I'm down to 12GB ram at the moment, just experimenting. I did run 16GB.
I will probably end up running only 2 x 4GB sticks for 8GB total as I don't really have a great need for that much ram anyways.

From what I see, the Noctura is very well built unit and all the misc. items are first class.
I'm loving it.

Once again, thanks to Bumblebee for the input.


OK, I'm now down to 2 x 4 for 8GB ram in dual channel mode and all is well, system is running great. Nice and cold, too.
Now it's time to push some overclocking on her.
I'll start with the cpu and go for 4.2Ghz right now.
Then I'll push the video card. That's a XFX ATI 6870 2GB card.

 

[Cotton_Cup]

I use a Noctua NH-D14 SE2011(it's for lga2011) and always loved it, our country is hot and all specially in the afternoon, and it keeps my pc cool.