niceguyrichy

glad it's not just me that does that
I've dumped more than one cup of coffee on the floor pulling the release handle and the 'wrong' side drops open
(i should be used to it by now, my lian li is the same. but I'm not..)

interesting thread, I've been looking at getting a different cooler for one of my sk775 machines, good to know the Arctic Freezer 7 Pro is a decent choice (and cheap too)
next on the list I think

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procupine14

I did that exact thing last week. I was pulling up on the release lever on a DELL and looking at the side and messing with it over and over and then the right side of the case fell off. and i was like F

and yes the AC Freezer 7 Pro and the AC Freezer Pro64 (Intel, and AMD versions respectively) are very affordable, good performing, coolers. I've used them on quite a few builds and for awhile I was running a lapped Freezer64 on my AMD 5200+ OCing rig (when it was still together and not my HTPC )

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HTPC/file server: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit - AMD Phenom x4 9850 - 4GB OCZ DDR2 800 (2x2GB) - 1TB WD Black - 4 x 1TB Hitachi DeskStar in RAID 5 - ATi TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner - HIS Raedon 4850 512MB - ASRock N68C-S UCC mobo - OCZ ModExtreme Pro 500W PSU

GF's Gaming PC: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit - AMD Phenom 9850 - 4GB OCZ DDR2 1066 - 500GB Western Digital GP - HIS Raedon 5770 1GB - ASUS M3A78-EM - Zalman 650W PSU

Media Streamer: Win 7 Pro 64-bit - AMD Athlon x2 3200+ - 4GB SuperTalent DDR2 800 - 250GB SeaGate Barracuda - MSI K9N6PGM2-V2 - ASUS Raedon 5450 SILENT - FSP group 250W PSU

Bolletje

Hyper TX3 is also a nice cooler

Takaharu

I was doing some research into what I'd like to have as a replacement cooler almost week ago. I wanted to have a relatively quiet fan that runs at a decent temperature without taking too much room in the case and without going to the latter part of £100. I considered the ASUS Lionsquare and the Scythe Zipang. The Zipang is rated highly for its quietness (is that a word?) and cools pretty well but I was a bit iffy about the size. The Lionsquare looks good and performs relatively well but isn't as quiet, is a tad more expensive and runs at about the same temperature.
I later came across the Xigmatek Dark Knight-S1283, which is cooler, almost as quiet as the Zipang and doesn't take up much room so I ordered that. It's still yet to arrive as it went out of stock before I ordered it and before they updated their site. It's out of stock a lot, I've found.

Tyrsonswood

"out of stock a lot" may be a good sign.......

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dipstick

That coolit domino looks really nice and easy to deal with. I wonder if its worth the upgrade -i'm sure it is performance wise but I hate loud fans. Still, I would like to see if I could round off to 4.5GHz
My current Ultra 120e with the penny mod (many thanks for the DH post which I cannot find atm) and xigmatek 120mm fan are dead quiet and keep my cpu well under 70c at all times. But for air cooling I usually stick by thermalright. They have kicked butt since my athlon days and while better stuff eventually comes out they are the first out the door with something worthy.

Stop It

Funnily enough, I just bought a Zalman CNPS9500A LED from ocUK because they had them on special offer to replace an old Gigabyte cooler I had been using for years This, in fact.

The difference is amazing, using the old Neon775 cooler, my Q9400 would heat up to 60c within 5-10 minutes of a 1hr test in OCCT, now, the thing doesn't breach 50c in the full hour which is a massive difference.

Also, it looks epic, and fits nicely within the theme of my case, even if it took lots of effort and er...blood (Damn sharp fins!) to get the thing fitted in the orientation I required (damn motherboard with fancy heatsinks!!!)

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Stop It

Sorry for the double post, but I wanted to give an example of where my temps have went.

Both tests were at around the same ambient temp, nothing scientific but it gives an idea of what a good cooler does to CPU temps:

Test 1: NeonCooler 775, OCCT Normal test 1Hr.


Test 2: Zalman CNPS 9500A-LED, OCCT Normal test 1hr.

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steves6403

hey
The best cooler ive had is the xigmatek and what the hay its cheap too
The best $40 au ive ever spent and its the 90mm fan one The 120mm fan one is much quieter
hope this helps some1 on a buget as i was

Takaharu

The Dark Knight wasn't going to return to stock so Scan said they'd refund the difference (or take a topping up) to an alternative. I've chosen the Coolermaster Hyper 212, as it was well-balanced between size, cooling power and noise level.

Takaharu

Excuse the double post.

The Hyper 212 arrived today
After struggling for some time to get it all screwed in properly (because I was too lazy to unplug everything, as it took me ages to cable tidy it all!) I popped in to the hardware monitor and the CPU was idling at 27 degrees (compared to around 52 previously), even with the previous Q-Fan controls enabled. As it was running so cooly I decided to crank up the Q-Fan to silent mode and turned down the chassis fans. It's pretty darn quiet and I'm idling at 32 degrees.
It's not a major overclock (0.57GHz increase) but all things considered, Q9550s are (apparently) known for running quite hot so it seems pretty decent to me.

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JaccoW

I have been using a Thermolab Baram with a push-pull set of Tacens Ventus Ice.
It works good, but not as good as I would want. Then again, maybe I need to do something about the mess of cables. :P

RE III - Frankie

I have two stock coolers, one Pentium 4 and one E7300 (which is the smaller sized Core 2 Duo heatsink). I also own a Xigmatek HDT S1283 which I used to get to 4GHz for the first time which benchmarked FEAZR like crazy! At the moment I'm in-between decent coolers while using a Zalman CNPS9700 (like Mousey). Imo it's like the Xigmatek for temperature and takes up just as much space. I want liquid cooling though and to compensate for this I have a room fan blowing into an open case right now. IMO all the coolers out there atm are damn ugly as heck. I just want something decent. I wouldn't go for anything on the shelf atm. I also have a Thermaltake ORB2 which I first used on my E7300. It worked Ok and didn't take up much space.

Lowfat

I think this is as low as the sensor will go on the i7 920. Its real temps is around -40C.

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kris23

how u keep condensation out?

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Lowfat

By doing good insulation on the board. Although I've been having some other issues w/ the board so the system is no more at the moment.

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Mike_Tech

XSPC Watercooling for me. X2-550@4.0Ghz. waiting till I go DDR3 later on and unlock to Quad

Mike