We all like that our rigs are well taken care of and safe. Components inside the chassis are emitting heat and good cooling system will guarantee longevity and pristine condition of system as a whole. Most of us start thinking about better CPU cooler when summer heats has already arrived. A lot of users keep their rigs overclocked 24/7 and this can be a problem when temperatures during summer months raise. This can result in overheating of some components and in worst case scenario some of those components can be irretrievably damaged. In most cases CPU is the biggest problem, because default (box) coolers that came with CPUs are not too efficient. So, what cooler to choose? We are offering you a little bit longer answer to that question, but we reckon that it will be worth reading.

 

Testing methodology

Since we are testing products from mid and high class segment, our choice of Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 as testing CPU is logical, while ASUS Rampage Formula is used as base for our testing rig. Room temperature was set at 23 degrees Celsius. If you wonder why we didn’t test same coolers with AMD CPUs the answer is simple: when it comes to CPU coolers, it doesn’t matter what CPU is underneath it if the cooler is good. Because of this, if one cooler is better than other on Intel CPU, it is impossible that first one is worse than second one on AMD CPU. Good CPU cooler is good CPU cooler no matter what CPU is beneath its base. Of course limitations that depends on supported sockets by each CPU cooler applies. Intel CPUs still have larger overclock margins and we know that our Q9500 can reach 4.1GHz. Thanks to this fact some coolers showed their “true face” at higher frequencies, but all of them did their job nicely up to 3.8GHz barrier. Only few coolers showed that are capable to withstand and operate correctly above 3.8GHz limit. Our test Intel CPU was tortured with LinX benchmark. Since some of the coolers did not have fans in original package we decided to test all coolers with mounted fans. Coolers that had fans in original package we didn’t modify, while those that didn’t have fans we modified by adding Cooler Master 12cm fans that operate at 1200RPM. We also decided to test all coolers with fans rotating at 1200RPM and provide comments on how those coolers operate on lower RPM. For minimum RPM we set fans at 600RPM when all coolers were almost silent. Each cooler was equipped with manufacturers maximum recommended number of fans. Choice for thermal paste was OCZ Freeze since it has proven itself, and can eliminate even that “bottle neck” during benchmarking. Since most of these coolers we already reviewed we will concentrate our attention at cooler performances and mounting procedure complexity.