CPU coolers - Your advice please.
 

There must be a thousand to choose from. I am building a new hot rod and have picked out all of the parts except the cpu cooler. Too many to choose from. I welcome your opinions. Thanks in advance.

I recently upgraded to this sweet baby. It's quiet as a mouse and cools quite well:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...103-146&depa=0

http://images10.newegg.com/productim...103-146-05.JPG

It's cheap, too.

Newegg is an awesome wholesaler! Crossbow, what kinda CPU ya have to cool?

I've always used the stock ones, but if you're hell bent on spending money.

Things to consider:

db: The lower the better.
cfm: The higher the better

I'm personally fond of my PC shutting the hell up, so for me as long as the air flow is sufficient for the cpu speed I'd go with the quitest one available.

If you're going to overclock it get one that moves more air.

I'm betting he's building a system...so he has to shell out for his own HSF.

That's what he said, but it depends on how you buy the cpu. If you get a retail CPU they typically include a cooler, if you go with an OEM CPU it may not.

http://www.eagepc.com/store.cfm?sear...=0&c=0&p=12159


There are more pics if you wanna see what you get for $100

Liquid cooled baby ..... that is the ONLY way you are going to get a CPU under 100 degrees farenhiet on a consistant basis short of hooking up a air conditioning or refrigeration unit to your case.

Unfortunatly I do NOT have this very unit but I would consider it if I overclocked!



.

I'd have to second RXRider's note about water-cooling. I've been assembling PC's for several years now. I've tried many HSF units and haven't got <100 degrees F since my slot 1 PII 233.

ya don't really need that cool though. I think most AMD's operate stably under 85 degrees C.

Intel 530 proc. (3GHz with hyperthreading)
Asus 915 chipset board
Seagate drives (two SATA - RAID 0)
Lian Li PC 7 black case
Seasonic 480 watt power supply
pc3200 RAM (two 256 MB modules)

Anyway that is the list of what is going to go into this thing. Still looking at video cards too. Even thinking of water cooling this biatch so I can over clock her to about 3.4 if she takes it.

Thanks for the link. I have been analyzing water coolers for about two weeks now. This looks great !!!

i'm not a computer professional and i'm not a power user or gamer...

but i'd double the ram to 1Gb...

you're building a nice machine with lots of power, more memory is never bad and it's nice to set it up once and not have to go back into the case...

i have 1Gb of ram on all my pc's...

I choose a predecessor of this bad boy:

http://www.zalmanusa.com/usa/product...47&code=005009
http://www.zalmanusa.com/upload/prod...led_cu_f_p.jpg

It's worked well and has been very quiet. If you're going for quiet, nothing beats water cooling. You've got to factor in Power supply fans, case fans, and drives when trying to reduce the noise pollution though.

You are deffinately right about 1 meg of RAM being better then 512 but I am gonna get this thing up and running then double the RAM later. Also I plan to use fan cooling until the checking account cools off then switch to water cooling. I am spending about $150.00 a pay check and will have it usable in about a month.

Wondering if I can use the Windows XP cd again or can "big brother" Microsoft force me to buy a new copy.

I recently got:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...108-021&depa=0
And threw a vantec tornado on it, oced my 2.6 20% and never break 96 F.

however, the newest and best option is:
http://www.frozencpu.com/cpu-tri-22.html?id=WcSKtvXZ

but you have to reinforce the mobo or suspend the heatsink a little because its so heavy.

The generic answer is "yes they can".

Basically when it goes to Activate over the Internet you're going to have to call it in on the phone. Now, once activated you can run until they send out a service pack that re-validates.

Now, I don't recommend this because it's illegal, but there are key generation programs on the net. Be careful, they can be trojans.

I would put XP on your new one. Just install like normal, then when you have it up and running Activate it. It will tell you it's been activate and should give you a number to call MS. Call them up, let them know you've "upgraded" your computer. They will likely ask you what parts you upgraded, you should know what you're going to say. I usually give them a story about a burned up MB, then "I went ahead and got a new video card, too." That seems to make them happy.

Then take the old one and install Linux. It's a perfect chance to get used to the OS you'll be running 5 years from now. :)