Cpu cooler for overclocking

corsair h60, very good cooler.

It comes with a single fan, but you can add another for a push/pull config. hottest my i5 gets when playing Bf3 is 38c

Started with the original H50 in push/pull and then went to the H100 when released. These are fantastic high end cooling solutions and great stepping stones to the real world of big league water cooling which I have yet to enter but intend to in the future. Being factory sealed and tested to endure punishments beyond what the average overclocker can give is very satisfying to say the least. Water transfers heat at a much higher rate then air alone. Both styles have come a tremendous way in design improvements and implementations. You can hardly go wrong with a premium example of either.

badger906 said:

corsair h60, very good cooler.

It comes with a single fan, but you can add another for a push/pull config. hottest my i5 gets when playing Bf3 is 38c

Those temps are great. But at the same time, they aren't necessary either. On my stock cooler overclocked Q9550, I hit around 55C playing BF3. But 55C is well within safe operating temperatures. That chip could easily run 20C hotter and still be within spec. I don't think that I would really encounter any benefit from dropping my temps into the 30's other than giving me room to overclock it even further..which I don't really have any interest in doing.

silverstormz said:

See now the problem is i like the h60 but im not willing to spand £60 for a cooler and the added risk of it having water in my pc :I

would you rather spend £30 and have the chance of your CPU going pop and taking out your motherboard and ram with it? then your looking at £££

And corsairs warranties are second to non, if it were to leak and cause an issue, id see corsair sending you a new rig lol.

my personal insight to pc's is if you want to do something (such as overclocking) you shouldnt skimp on the necessities. Its like building a gaming rig and skimping on a GPU..
Plus the corsairs mounting brackets fit such a wide array of sockets it will easily fit your next computer you get/build.

False economics to under purchase, PSU, CPU cooler or case and case fans when looking to overclock. It's just my opinion that people cut corners there will end up spending more in the long run. I've learned this the hard way !

The Phanteks PH-TC14PE is probably the best air cooler available. My ambient temp 19.3c. Temp inside the case 20c. Running Prime the core temp was 41c. Only expensive liquid cooling could do better than that

linnemeyerhere said:

False economics to under purchase, PSU, CPU cooler or case and case fans when looking to overclock. It's just my opinion that people cut corners there will end up spending more in the long run. I've learned this the hard way !

I agree completely. You don't want to skimp and take chances on cheap or inadequate hardware. However, I also don't see the benefit in shooting for the sky and just putting in everything you can possibly afford for the sake of resolving an issue that you might not even experience.

With everything, I like to start somewhere and test and see what performance I get and what problems I have. For example, when I bought my CPU (Q9550) and stayed with the stock cooler, I heard people say "that's dumb, it's not even sufficient at stock speeds, forget about it if you plan to overclock at all" Once I assembled the box and checked my temps, I was idling in the mid 30's and I would max out under Prime 95 around 65C at my stock speeds. I then attempted a slight overclock from 2.83Ghz to 3.2 (just changed my multiplier from 8.5 to 8.0 and my FSB from 333 to 400). I tested again and my idle temps hardly changed at all and my max went to about 67C. All within safe zones for this CPU.

I later did some reading that suggested that I could easily lower the vcore just a tad to drop temps on this CPU. I changed from 1.25000V to 1.175V. After doing this, I bumped my multiplier back from 8.0 to 8.5. So, now I was running at 3.4Ghz with (400FSB x 8.5). At idle, I'm sitting at 28-32C and my load temps are 64-65C under Prime 95. Again, within specs.

So, I saved some money by not buying a more elaborate cooler. I didn't add any additional case fans to my Antec P182..as it already came with 3 x 120mm (Top, Back Top, and bottom between hard drive cage and power supply bay) and even with all 3 at their absolute lowest speeds, my case was plenty cool and my system temps were not a concern. I didn't save the money because I was feeling cheap, i saved the money because I didn't forsee benefit to the spend.

I instead, took my saved money and bought an Intel SSD and an external eSATA bay and a 2TB SATA hard drive for that bay. That was 2.5 years ago and that box is still running strong as ever. Most dependable and trouble free build I have ever had.

Andreas W,
20C was the case temp while outside ambient was 19.3 with idle cores at 40C. All arguments about cooling must always begin with ambient temps and there's not a passive cooler that cools below ambient. For me it's more when the summer months come and my office soars to 90-95F and the rig is tested to cool in the blaze of summer, just like most extreme gamer's they have more of a concern for full tilt temps as they should be. Idle doesn't even make a good comparison really, imho.