CPU cooler advice wanted

[wei]

I am considering building a desktop with an Intel I5-2320 1155 CPU on
an Asus P8Z77-V LX mobo.

Portatech recommends I buy a CPU cooler, but fails to advise or
recommend which of many it lists. That I can see anyway.

Can someone advise which I should get? I want to be sure I get one
that fits, and is not overkill. I would apppreciate it.

Xiexie

Wei

 

[Paul]

I am considering building a desktop with an Intel I5-2320 1155 CPU on
an Asus P8Z77-V LX mobo.

Portatech recommends I buy a CPU cooler, but fails to advise or
recommend which of many it lists. That I can see anyway.

Can someone advise which I should get? I want to be sure I get one
that fits, and is not overkill. I would apppreciate it.

Xiexie

Wei

Did they sell you an OEM 2320 (no fan) ?
Or did they sell you a Retail 2320 with heatsink/fan and still
insisted you buy a cooler for it ?

The Intel cooler is "good enough", if you aren't overclocking.
Occasionally, Intel ships a model where they should have used
their next best cooler, and the thing doesn't cool that well.
But at least for my other (65W) retail Intel, the boxed cooler with
push pins was good enough for the job. At least, until those
pins are ruined.

http://ark.intel.com/products/53446/Intel-Core-i5-2320-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_30-GHz?q=I5-2320

It's a 95W processor. If it is an OEM (in tray)
purchase, then it probably doesn't come with a cooler.

This cooler should be pretty close to the one I'm currently
using. Mine has a bolt-thru mounting, meaning I have to take
the motherboard out of the computer case, to get the cooler
off it. Since my case has a motherboard tray, this is relatively
easy to do. (The motherboard comes out the "non-door-side" of
the case.) The bag of fittings isn't shown in the picture, so
I can't verify it mounts the same way as mine. Mine has bare copper
pipes, whereas this one has plated pipes. A nice thing
about this design, is the fan is screw mounted, and when the fan
wears out, you can use a standard 120mm case cooling fan as a
replacement. I broke my fan, so this aspect really came in handy.
I used a 120mm fan I had lying around, and it has been running
for several years now.

"COOLER MASTER GeminII S524 120mm Long Life Sleeve $40
CPU Cooler Compatible with Intel 2011/1366/1155/775 and AMD FM1/FM2/AM3+"

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103100

(manual - should give a 372,586 byte PDF file GeminII_S524_English_Manual-0304.pdf
The mounting does look the same as mine.)

http://www.coolermaster.com/xresserver01-DLFILE-P13021804068fc3-F130221028665ef.html

They make another version which is low profile, but I don't
know if I'd buy it. You need to do a visual check, as to whether
the DIMM coolers are going to bump into the fins or not, on
these things. If you get DIMMs with big fins on top, sometimes
that is an issue. I use low profile Kingston DIMMs with no coolers,
so that isn't a problem.

"COOLER MASTER GeminII M4 RR-GMM4-16PK-R2 120mm Slim Fan Long Life Sleeve $31
Bearing CPU Cooler Compatible with Intel 2011/1366/1155/1156/775 and
AMD FM1/FM2/AM3+"

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103177

I prefer that format, to the sideways-pointing format. The air
blowing down on the motherboard, helps cool the chipset and
VCore power components.

Most people don't like bolt-thru designs, but the reason I like
it, is I only do the nuts up as tight as is needed to keep the
heatsink in place. Some of the other lever or clamp types,
you can tell the pressure is on the high side. My cooler is
a model previous to the S524, so the fins aren't shaped exactly
the same way. The new one looks like it might have more clearance
for DIMMs.

In some computer cases, it's pretty hard to angle a motherboard
into the case, with the heatsink bolted on. But my nifty computer
case makes this style of install easy. And, I'm embarrassed to report,
I didn't even know the computer case had a removable tray. I'd used
the case for several years. And one day I was looking at the non-door
side of the computer, and couldn't believe my eyes. The location of
some screws there, told me the tray comes out. And I'd put a couple
motherboards in there, without pulling the tray Doh! When I
bought the case, the store staff didn't even bother to tell
me what a sweet deal I was getting. The case doesn't even have
a brand name on it.

I have heard of people stripping the threads, or busting off the
studs on that style of cooler mounting. Some common sense is required
when it comes time to tighten it up.

Paul

 

[VanguardLH]

I am considering building a desktop with an Intel I5-2320 1155 CPU on
an Asus P8Z77-V LX mobo. Portatech recommends I buy a CPU cooler,
but fails to advise or recommend which of many it lists. That I can
see anyway.

I don't see that vendor selling individual retail or OEM CPU components.
I only see them selling combos (mobo+CPU), like:

http://www.portatech.com/products/product.cshtml?id=70280&o=70244

That page says "Price Includes Motherboard, CPU & Heatsink/Fan, FREE
Assembly & Testing". So why would the vendor suggest you need to get a
HSF (heatsink+fan) when they are already including the stock one that
comes with the retail CPU package?

You can pick a better HSF but why do you think you need one? They won't
know if you intent to overclock the CPU. Are you? You can always spend
excess money on cooling capacity you'll never need. Their objective is
to make money so obviously they'd like you to pick the more expensive
options when selecting what you want them to build for you.

Also remember that you probably do NOT want the fan running at maximum
speed since that generates the most noise. The BIOS will include
"quiet" options to reduce fan speed to reduce noise (if not then you can
use a temperature monitor and fan speed controller utility, like
Speedfan). So you could buy their most expensive HSF option that you
will never fully require but end up reducing cooling *capacity* by
reducing fan speed.

If you are not overclocking then just go with the stock HSF. Then load
a temperature monitor utility to watch your temperatures as you perform
you normal routine of activities on the computer and when you think you
are heavily exercising the CPU, like playing video games or editing or
converting video files. If temperature are higher than you like (which
is NOT the same as higher than the operating temperature range for which
the product was designed) then later get a beefier HSF. The cost will
be equal to, or less, than what Portatech wants to charge you.

Their beefiest HSF offering is for a copper heat-pipe HSF, Artic Silver
5 thermal paste (which may not be the best choice since it is the
runniest paste meant for use with polished mating surfaces), and a
couple case fans (which they don't mention how they are lubricated so
figure just cheap sleeve bearings). A couple cheap case fans at Newegg
would cost $3 each (so $6 for 2). Artic Silver Alumina (which is
probably a better choice assuming you aren't going to lap the mating CPU
plate and heatsink surfaces) is $5. A heatpiped CPU heatsink runs about
$20. So for $31 you can separately buy their $68 beefy HSF option.

Just go with the stock HSF. The vendor isn't going to sell a combo that
is going to self-fry and cause them warrantied returns. That setup is
good for normal use of the computer. If, however, you intend to abuse
the components then it's up to you to decide how much cooling depending
how much you intend to abuse the parts.

 

[wei]

Did they sell you an OEM 2320 (no fan) ?
Or did they sell you a Retail 2320 with heatsink/fan and still
insisted you buy a cooler for it ?

I may gave misled you. I am building a complete system down to the
PSU, tower, and HDD. I haven't bought the CPU yet. Portatech just
showed I should select cooling. I think the CPU in the box should
come with its standard cooler. Since I will not over clock it I don't
think, I may not need extra cooling. I am building a new desktop to
replace a quad AMD that crapped out.

I think I have detemined that this combo (ie I5-2320 1155 CPU and
Asus P8Z77-V LX mobo) will handle 32-bit and 64-bit. Right? I plan
to multi-boot W7 & W8 on it.

The Intel cooler is "good enough", if you aren't overclocking.
Occasionally, Intel ships a model where they should have used
their next best cooler, and the thing doesn't cool that well.
But at least for my other (65W) retail Intel, the boxed cooler with
push pins was good enough for the job. At least, until those
pins are ruined.

http://ark.intel.com/products/53446/Intel-Core-i5-2320-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_30-GHz?q=I5-2320

It's a 95W processor. If it is an OEM (in tray)
purchase, then it probably doesn't come with a cooler.

AFAIK, it is not a tray. Shud be in box.

This cooler should be pretty close to the one I'm currently
using. Mine has a bolt-thru mounting, meaning I have to take
the motherboard out of the computer case, to get the cooler
off it. Since my case has a motherboard tray, this is relatively
easy to do. (The motherboard comes out the "non-door-side" of
the case.) The bag of fittings isn't shown in the picture, so
I can't verify it mounts the same way as mine. Mine has bare copper
pipes, whereas this one has plated pipes. A nice thing
about this design, is the fan is screw mounted, and when the fan
wears out, you can use a standard 120mm case cooling fan as a
replacement. I broke my fan, so this aspect really came in handy.
I used a 120mm fan I had lying around, and it has been running
for several years now.

Sounds good to me.

"COOLER MASTER GeminII S524 120mm Long Life Sleeve $40
CPU Cooler Compatible with Intel 2011/1366/1155/775 and AMD FM1/FM2/AM3+"

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103100

(manual - should give a 372,586 byte PDF file GeminII_S524_English_Manual-0304.pdf
The mounting does look the same as mine.)

http://www.coolermaster.com/xresserver01-DLFILE-P13021804068fc3-F130221028665ef.html

They make another version which is low profile, but I don't
know if I'd buy it. You need to do a visual check, as to whether
the DIMM coolers are going to bump into the fins or not, on
these things. If you get DIMMs with big fins on top, sometimes
that is an issue. I use low profile Kingston DIMMs with no coolers,
so that isn't a problem.

"COOLER MASTER GeminII M4 RR-GMM4-16PK-R2 120mm Slim Fan Long Life Sleeve $31
Bearing CPU Cooler Compatible with Intel 2011/1366/1155/1156/775 and
AMD FM1/FM2/AM3+"

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103177

I prefer that format, to the sideways-pointing format. The air
blowing down on the motherboard, helps cool the chipset and
VCore power components.

Most people don't like bolt-thru designs, but the reason I like
it, is I only do the nuts up as tight as is needed to keep the
heatsink in place. Some of the other lever or clamp types,
you can tell the pressure is on the high side.

You know, that is a point. I have noticed the same high pressure on
earlier CPUs.

My cooler is
a model previous to the S524, so the fins aren't shaped exactly
the same way. The new one looks like it might have more clearance
for DIMMs.

In some computer cases, it's pretty hard to angle a motherboard
into the case, with the heatsink bolted on. But my nifty computer
case makes this style of install easy. And, I'm embarrassed to report,
I didn't even know the computer case had a removable tray. I'd used
the case for several years. And one day I was looking at the non-door
side of the computer, and couldn't believe my eyes. The location of
some screws there, told me the tray comes out. And I'd put a couple
motherboards in there, without pulling the tray Doh! When I
bought the case, the store staff didn't even bother to tell
me what a sweet deal I was getting. The case doesn't even have
a brand name on it.

I wonder how easy it would be to determine if a given case had that
feature? I like it. I have been looking at a Thermalink mid tower
and Antec Sonata III. My main concern is that it has a few extra
interal 3 1/2 slots for my multiple HDDs. Many towers don't.

I have heard of people stripping the threads, or busting off the
studs on that style of cooler mounting. Some common sense is required
when it comes time to tighten it up.





Paul

Good advice.

Wei

 

[miso]

I may gave misled you. I am building a complete system down to the
PSU, tower, and HDD. I haven't bought the CPU yet. Portatech just
showed I should select cooling. I think the CPU in the box should
come with its standard cooler. Since I will not over clock it I don't
think, I may not need extra cooling. I am building a new desktop to
replace a quad AMD that crapped out.

I think I have detemined that this combo (ie I5-2320 1155 CPU and
Asus P8Z77-V LX mobo) will handle 32-bit and 64-bit. Right? I plan
to multi-boot W7 & W8 on it.



AFAIK, it is not a tray. Shud be in box.


Sounds good to me.


You know, that is a point. I have noticed the same high pressure on
earlier CPUs.


I wonder how easy it would be to determine if a given case had that
feature? I like it. I have been looking at a Thermalink mid tower
and Antec Sonata III. My main concern is that it has a few extra
interal 3 1/2 slots for my multiple HDDs. Many towers don't.


Good advice.

Wei

If you are building from scratch, many new cases have a door to get to
the back of the mobo so you can attach the heat sink backing plate after
mounting the mobo. Fractal Design for example, but there are others.

You may consider a self contained liquid cooled heatsink, Corsair for
instance. You can read reviews on newegg.

Over the years, the forced air coolers have gotten ridiculously big and
heavy. The liquid cooled units still use back plates, but don't stress
the mobo as much. They don't end up being a lever torquing the mobo.

You have to pull the rear case fan for a self contained liquid cooler.
Many cases have pass through holes for a big arse radiator, but I
wouldn't tackle the kind of liquid cooling you have to build yourself.

 

[wei]

I don't see that vendor selling individual retail or OEM CPU components.
I only see them selling combos (mobo+CPU), like:

http://www.portatech.com/products/product.cshtml?id=70280&o=70244

That page says "Price Includes Motherboard, CPU & Heatsink/Fan, FREE
Assembly & Testing". So why would the vendor suggest you need to get a
HSF (heatsink+fan) when they are already including the stock one that
comes with the retail CPU package?

You can pick a better HSF but why do you think you need one? They won't
know if you intent to overclock the CPU. Are you? You can always spend
excess money on cooling capacity you'll never need. Their objective is
to make money so obviously they'd like you to pick the more expensive
options when selecting what you want them to build for you.

Also remember that you probably do NOT want the fan running at maximum
speed since that generates the most noise. The BIOS will include
"quiet" options to reduce fan speed to reduce noise (if not then you can
use a temperature monitor and fan speed controller utility, like
Speedfan). So you could buy their most expensive HSF option that you
will never fully require but end up reducing cooling *capacity* by
reducing fan speed.

If you are not overclocking then just go with the stock HSF. Then load
a temperature monitor utility to watch your temperatures as you perform
you normal routine of activities on the computer and when you think you
are heavily exercising the CPU, like playing video games or editing or
converting video files. If temperature are higher than you like (which
is NOT the same as higher than the operating temperature range for which
the product was designed) then later get a beefier HSF. The cost will
be equal to, or less, than what Portatech wants to charge you.

Their beefiest HSF offering is for a copper heat-pipe HSF, Artic Silver
5 thermal paste (which may not be the best choice since it is the
runniest paste meant for use with polished mating surfaces), and a
couple case fans (which they don't mention how they are lubricated so
figure just cheap sleeve bearings). A couple cheap case fans at Newegg
would cost $3 each (so $6 for 2). Artic Silver Alumina (which is
probably a better choice assuming you aren't going to lap the mating CPU
plate and heatsink surfaces) is $5. A heatpiped CPU heatsink runs about
$20. So for $31 you can separately buy their $68 beefy HSF option.

Just go with the stock HSF. The vendor isn't going to sell a combo that
is going to self-fry and cause them warrantied returns. That setup is
good for normal use of the computer. If, however, you intend to abuse
the components then it's up to you to decide how much cooling depending
how much you intend to abuse the parts.

I could play with clocking, having been a sofware/harware
engineer/programmer when I worked for a living. but at my now
unstated, advanced age, I guess I better concentrate on my destiny
(grass underside). BION, I was programming in 1960 (Gad!). We didn't
even call it programming back then. There was no such thing as a
'stored program' or a software OS.

Stock cooler it is - would not have even brought it up except for the
Portatech 'flag'. Remaining nice-to-have is a back-access case with
two outide 5 1/4 bays, at least four or five internal 3 1/4 bays for
multi-booting my hard drives. Screwless would be nice. Like Dell
seems to like, as do I. Would be nice if an otherwise acceptable
mobo had at least one IDE header, but I guess that is asking too much.
They're all SATA, which means I would want around five or six SATA
headers. USBs? five or six, a couple on the front. One eSATA might
prove useful.

Lastly I stuck to ATX vice mATX to get at least one PCI slot.

XieXie

Wei

 

[Paul]

I may gave misled you. I am building a complete system down to the
PSU, tower, and HDD. I haven't bought the CPU yet. Portatech just
showed I should select cooling. I think the CPU in the box should
come with its standard cooler. Since I will not over clock it I don't
think, I may not need extra cooling. I am building a new desktop to
replace a quad AMD that crapped out.

I think I have detemined that this combo (ie I5-2320 1155 CPU and
Asus P8Z77-V LX mobo) will handle 32-bit and 64-bit. Right? I plan
to multi-boot W7 & W8 on it.

http://ark.intel.com/products/53446/Intel-Core-i5-2320-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_30-GHz?q=I5-2320

It says instruction set 64 bit, but will also still support 32 bit.

I wonder how easy it would be to determine if a given case had that
feature? I like it. I have been looking at a Thermalink mid tower
and Antec Sonata III. My main concern is that it has a few extra
interal 3 1/2 slots for my multiple HDDs. Many towers don't.

There are at least a thousand computer case models available at
one time. And I don't know of a good way to shop for one with a
removable tray. It's not a term listed on the Newegg listing.

The last one I bought, I just looked at what they had at a
local computer store. And the Sonata was the one I ended up buying.
It's the case on my "second" computer.

Paul

 

[Darklight]

I may gave misled you. I am building a complete system down to the
PSU, tower, and HDD. I haven't bought the CPU yet. Portatech just
showed I should select cooling. I think the CPU in the box should
come with its standard cooler. Since I will not over clock it I don't
think, I may not need extra cooling. I am building a new desktop to
replace a quad AMD that crapped out.

I think I have detemined that this combo (ie I5-2320 1155 CPU and
Asus P8Z77-V LX mobo) will handle 32-bit and 64-bit. Right? I plan
to multi-boot W7 & W8 on it.



AFAIK, it is not a tray. Shud be in box.


Sounds good to me.


You know, that is a point. I have noticed the same high pressure on
earlier CPUs.


I wonder how easy it would be to determine if a given case had that
feature? I like it. I have been looking at a Thermalink mid tower
and Antec Sonata III. My main concern is that it has a few extra
interal 3 1/2 slots for my multiple HDDs. Many towers don't.


Good advice.

Wei

Once you have decided on the cpu you want to use, go and take a look at
reviews of HSF on youtube. To decide if you need an after market cooler.


I my self use a corsair h80i which is a liquid cpu cooler £80. I only got
this because i have overclocked my cpu by more than 25%. I use to use a
zalman cnps7x air cooled cpu cooler £28.

The zalman was good enough for standard use. IE running cpu at stock or
light overclocking. The h80i is good for extrem overclocking. So
you hvae to ask your self what are you going to be doing with your cpu
that would warrant an after market HSF or cpu cooler.

With intel cpu's the stock cpu cooler is poor to say the least.

So how much do you have to spend or how much are you perpared to pay?

 

[Paul]

Once you have decided on the cpu you want to use, go and take a look at
reviews of HSF on youtube. To decide if you need an after market cooler.


I my self use a corsair h80i which is a liquid cpu cooler £80. I only got
this because i have overclocked my cpu by more than 25%. I use to use a
zalman cnps7x air cooled cpu cooler £28.

The zalman was good enough for standard use. IE running cpu at stock or
light overclocking. The h80i is good for extrem overclocking. So
you hvae to ask your self what are you going to be doing with your cpu
that would warrant an after market HSF or cpu cooler.

With intel cpu's the stock cpu cooler is poor to say the least.

So how much do you have to spend or how much are you perpared to pay?

To put this in perspective, the theta_R of retail boxed
coolers is around 0.33C/W. Naturally, there is room for
variation, as not all the boxed coolers are of the same
construction. My 65W processor used a simple aluminum
cooler, but that's all that was really necessary.
(Seeing as the two 65W processor I have, draw 36W and
43W respectively, flat out.)

Aftermarket air coolers are available down to as low as
0.12 C/W or so.

If a 95W processor really used 95W of electricity,
taking 95W * 0.33C/W = 31C delta_T. If the internal case
air temperature is 35C (i.e. 10C above room temp 25C), the CPU
is at 66C.

Using the aftermarket cooler, brings this down a fair bit.
At an added expense.

I have no idea what the typical closed loop $100 water cooler
does for theta_R, as manufacturers tend to stay away from
offering reliable performance information. Zalman used to
do this (quote a theta_R), when they first started selling
coolers, but eventually stopped. I expect their marketing
director made them stop

The only other sources of theta_R info, is a couple
web sites using a thermal block (with resistive heat
source). But the owners of such sites, eventually
get tired of running those tests. Just like Xbitlabs
got tired of measuring actual video card power. Now
we have to judge a lot of things, "by eye".

Paul

 

[miso]

The stock coolers make up for their lack of iron with more RPMs on the
fan. So they don't cool as well and are noisier. The vendors are very
reluctant to sell a CPU without a fan, with the theory being the user
would just plug it in with no fan. Of course, that could be solved with
an icon of a fan attached to the top of the CPU. I have a nice
collection of OEM fans. ;-)

The nice thing about the "water" CPU coolers like the Corsair is the
heat is moved right to the edge of the case. The forced air coolers heat
the interior of the case, which then is drawn out by the fans.

I have been using Antec cases for some time, though I have one Fractal
case. I like how Fractal uses a ducted fan at the top of the case. Lots
of cases have fans on top, but they have kludges to keep the dust out.
Fractal uses a duct at the back of the case, so there is no dust issue.
The top fan helps to cool the ram. Motherboards where the RAM is
vertical when installed will cool a bit better with the top fan.

The newer cases have gone to a door behind the CPU to reach the mounting
plate rather than the slide out scheme. Also they leave room for cables
to be routed behind the motherboard, i.e. on the other side of the metal
and the outside panel. The theory is all that cabling inside the case
restricts air flow.

I really don't mind the lake of IDE on the new motherboards as far as
hard drives go, but it is annoying to have perfectly good DVD burners
that can't be used.