recommended heatsink?

[CrazeD]

it has been proven time and time agin that zalman while good awhile ago is not good now, they haven't released a new design in years and they cost to much

why would i spend $60 on a crappy zalman when i can spend $30 on a better cooler(sunbeam ccf or ximatek rifle)

also it isnt all about copper, i know copper transfers heat well but heat pipes transfer heat better.

To be fair, the Zalmans have copper heat pipes.

However, while the Zalmans are copper, and while copper has better thermal conductivity properties than aluminum, more surface area means better heat dissipation. All the good coolers nowadays are huge, much bigger than the Zalmans and more surface area. That is why they are better.

A few years ago, Zalmans were among the best, however they've never really been the best, and they are far from it now.

 

[zmatt]

But to also be fair The Core contact freezer has more copper heat pipes. The actual heat sink part can be aluminum if your heat pipes are copper. From there surface area means more than conductivity. The pipes got the heat off the chip, the rest of the heat sink gets the heat off the pipes.

 

[eyeCpc]

The one thing I would point out to billatron is that the cooler the board is kept the lower the cpu temps will be in the long run. You can toss on any 3rd party cooler and still end up seeing warmer temps if the case lacks enough air flow.

A case seeing no front or a small front fan there tends to lack a good intake of cooler room air. Swapping to larger fans or adding more usually helps.

 

[zmatt]

Of course case air flow is important. It's second only to cpu cooling. That's why my case is outfitted with Scythe slipstreams. I like the 130CFM each fan provides.

 

[eyeCpc]

Second to? I'll readily disagree on that from having a Scythe with a 92mm fan on an old build where the board temps were higher then the cpu's there. The case only saw a small rear and top fans and no vents even on the front or side(cheap case for sure then).

Once everything was moved into a new case seeing a large front intake the board temps dropped some 17C from 48C down to 31C. The cpu then dropped from 46C down to 33C! Cooling that board off made the difference there.

 

[Peter.Cort]

but if you have a ****** cooler on there then 17C can be child's play... i've seen drops of 30+C from a new cooler.

 

[zmatt]

Not only that but the motherboard can take higher temps in general than the cpu can. There are many components on the mother board like the PMU that can take temps upwards of 100C and still operate. The only things on the motherboard that you should worry about temp wise is the Northbridge and the memory. A heat sensing diode placed on the motherboard will pick up temps that mean nothing to system performance.

 

[CrazeD]

Not only that but the motherboard can take higher temps in general than the cpu can. There are many components on the mother board like the PMU that can take temps upwards of 100C and still operate. The only things on the motherboard that you should worry about temp wise is the Northbridge and the memory. A heat sensing diode placed on the motherboard will pick up temps that mean nothing to system performance.

Exactly.

And furthermore, the boards temperature doesn't, in any way, dictate the CPU temperature.

It is obvious that if you have a lack of ambient airflow, that you will have higher potential temps. However, the more efficiently you suck air away from the CPU, the lower the temps will be. Even if that heat can't go anywhere once it's gone and just disperses within the case. Although you would see better temps with better ambient cooling, simply drawing it away from the CPU core is what matters.

 

[zmatt]

With good wire management you can lower average temps a few degrees system wide, but nothing beats a good cpu heat sink as far as impact on temps goes.

 

[v8killaz]

all i can say is buy a core contact cooler
i have a xigmatic and it performs way above my expectrations
even though i got mine oc to 3.3 it still says cool at 39 celcius under load