whats a good heatsink/fan??

[dmk112]

Can anyone recommend a heat sink/fan for my new upgrade?

also, when i first installed my cpu last year i put thermal paste on it. now that im chaninging my mother board, do i have to buy some more of that?

[Confused]

What CPU? You will need thermal paste no mater the CPU. You should have some left over. I bought a tub of Artic Silver couple of years ago and still have plenty after several CPU installs. Remember it doesn't take much.

[dmk112]

its a 2ghz and i have no more, b/c it was a small packet... is it necessary?

[Jeradln82]

Speeze FalconRock seems to be a favored HSF around here. I personally use the ThermalTake Silentboost which is great. These two setups perform well and are very silent. You can get other HSF that perform just as well or maybe slightly better, but they will be louder.

Do you have a Intel or AMD cpu? What are you looking for in a fan, do you want a quiet fan? These are just little questions that will help you pick out a HSF.

[Confused]

Originally posted by dmk112 its a 2ghz and i have no more, b/c it was a small packet... is it necessary?

What brand? If AMD I would recommend the Speeze Falconrock $9.49 from www.newegg.com I don't have experience with Intel so won't make a recommendation.

And YES, it is necessary.
Chas

[dmk112]

its intel, does it matter?

[Mr N8]

For Intel, I would get the Thermaltake Silent Boost. The Falconrock is a Socket A (AMD) cooler. It won't work on a Pentium 4.

[Cricket]

Originally posted by dmk112 its intel, does it matter?

The heatsink attachment method for a Intel P4 CPU is different from a AMD Athlon CPU...they don't interchange.

Cricket

[QuickSilver]

I'm still trying to figure out why Speeze is "favored". Other than the cheap price, they just seem like nothing but your normal chunk of aluminum with a fan stuck on top. I have not been too impressed by them.

[Mr N8]

The Falconrocks that I have used are quiet, they cool well, and they are inexpensive. Those 3 things rarely come together when factoring the value of a HSF.

[Cricket]

Originally posted by Mr N8 The Falconrocks that I have used are quiet, they cool well, and they are inexpensive. Those 3 things rarely come together when factoring the value of a HSF.

Exactly...usually, the really good heatsinks are fairly expensive. But with the FalconRock you get a good performing heatsink for a very reasonable price. Just goes to show you you don't have to spend a lot or use a "status symbol" heatsink to get very good cooling performance.

Originally posted by QuickSilver I'm still trying to figure out why Speeze is "favored". Other than the cheap price, they just seem like nothing but your normal chunk of aluminum with a fan stuck on top.

Don't forget about the copper insert...that makes a big difference. Copper is a good conductor of heat, but it doesn't release heat to atmosphere as well as aluminum does. A copper heatsink will take longer to cooldown than a aluminum heatsink, that's why most of the all-copper heatsinks use fairly strong fans. On the other hand, a big aluminum heatsink doesn't need a powerful fan to help it release heat to atmosphere, but it doesn't "absorb" the heat from the CPU core like copper does. So a combination of a copper insert for the contact point to take heat from the PCU and aluminum fins to dissipate the heat to atmosphere is the best of both worlds.

Thermalright had a really good heatsink not long ago called the AX-7, but they discontinued it to concentrate on their all-copper heatsink line. But now they're brought back the copper-aluminum heatsink with the ALX-800.

And Alpha has been making their copper-aluminum heatsinks for years.

Cricket

[Confused]

Originally posted by QuickSilver I'm still trying to figure out why Speeze is "favored". Other than the cheap price, they just seem like nothing but your normal chunk of aluminum with a fan stuck on top. I have not been too impressed by them.

It's a big hunk of aluminum with a copper insert and 80mm fan. It cools as good as the Alpha (another big hunk of aluminum with copper insert and 80mm fan) in my wifes PC that cost $47.00 2 years ago.
Chas

[nikerw]

I have used Speeze WhisperRock II HSF in all of my builds. They have all been great, and usually under 10 bux

[bmrmrb]

i am buying a socket-478 P4 2.8Ghz (HT). it is my first build so i don't plan to overclock too much if at all. i understand it comes with a standard HS and fan. will these be good enough or do i need a "proper" fan? also does it come with thermal paste?

[morriswindgate]

With Intel CPUs get the Retail Box version and use the HSF that comes with it.

[Mr N8]

The CPU fan that comes with the retail P4 is very good. I even ran a P4 2.2 @ 2.8GHz, and heat wasn't an issue.

The heatsink that comes with it has a thermal pad on it, so you don't need to get any additional thermal paste.

[Tin]

i use a thermalright SLK-900A with a 92mm panaflo H1A 56.8cfm fan. its a great combo, and should cost ~$35 shipped at www.jab-tech.com. it keeps my OCed 180+ nice and cool. it idles around 26C at stock speed (1533MHz) and stock Vcore (1.5V). right now at 1.73V and 2403MHz im at 30C idle/38C load.

[Coach3K]

I'm not a big modder, and I'm away from home for training so I don't have access to a lot of tools.

I've heard a lot of HSF combos tossed around and, in addition to efficiency at dissipating heat, I need to consider ease of installation. It sounds like many of the HSF combos mentioned require some kind of modification to the mobo and/or mounting bracket.

I've got a P2.6C on Asus P4C800e-deluxe board (so Socket 478).

I'm currently using just the stock HSF and idle temps sit around 25-28C, depending on whether I'm wearing longjohns or not.

I mostly play EverQuest at the moment, and I notice that the CPU really gets stressed over Memory, and my CPU temps jump almost instantly to 41-42C when I load into the game and stay there pretty stable. And this is without overclocking at all. This max load temp in EQ actually mirrors what I see when under torture test on Prime95.

I think I figured out a problem I had with stability earlier (I left AGP/PCI settings at Auto instead of locking them in at 66/33 when I tried OC'ing). So I'm going to give OC'ing another shot. I don't want to see my temps raise too far above 45 under load while playing.

SOO...1) Should I even worry about getting another HSF combo or stay with stock if I plan to get this 2.6C OC'd to 3.1 Ghz (240 FSB) or so? Should the stock HSF keep me around 45'ish given the earlier temps without adjusting Vcore?

2) If a new HSF would be recommended for that OC'ing, which one will best combine ease-of-installation without more than a screwdriver with good heat-dissipation properties? The Zalman 7000's (would probably go with 7000A-AlCu) looks fairly simple. It sounds like SP-94's require some modding. Any ideas?

Thanks for the info.

[Cricket]

Originally posted by Coach3K SOO...1) Should I even worry about getting another HSF combo or stay with stock if I plan to get this 2.6C OC'd to 3.1 Ghz (240 FSB) or so? Should the stock HSF keep me around 45'ish given the earlier temps without adjusting Vcore?

Keep the stock heatsink, it'll work fine...even for the overclock you have in mind. The stock Intel heatsink is basically an oversized unit anyway, so it handles stock CPU temps easily...and a little overclocking won't raise temps that much anyway.

Cricket

[Coach3K]

Thanks Cricket...I think you may have mentioned something like that in a reply to a post I made a few weeks ago, but I'm still not sure if I'm going to be needing to up the Vcore or not yet...I wouldn't mind at all hitting 250 FSB just to get my PC4000 memory to spec speed, but I've been unstable to this point over 245 or so.

I'm just going to make my changes, get myself to a stable point at stock Vcore speed, and run some stress tests to see where the temp goes.

Thanks again.

[Cricket]

Originally posted by Coach3K Thanks Cricket...I think you may have mentioned something like that in a reply to a post I made a few weeks ago, but I'm still not sure if I'm going to be needing to up the Vcore or not yet...I wouldn't mind at all hitting 250 FSB just to get my PC4000 memory to spec speed, but I've been unstable to this point over 245 or so. I'm just going to make my changes, get myself to a stable point at stock Vcore speed, and run some stress tests to see where the temp goes.

Just so you know, upping the vcore on a P4 more than 5% can have really bad results...you could kill your P4. Best not to mess with it.

Cricket