TR Forums

(Someone asked this question in another forum. I am answering it under the appropriate topic.)

"Which heatsink should I get for my new AthlonXP?"

There are many heatsinks available. I look for one that has a copper slug in contact with the CPU core, a lot of surface area to exchange heat with the moving air and a fan with high capacity and low noise. A large fan spinning slowly will make less noise than a small high-speed fan when both are providing the same air flow. A 38 cfm 7000rpm 60x25mm fan is obnoxiously noisy, while a 38cfm 80x25mm can be nearly inaudible.

If you do not plan on overclocking, the retail AMD heatsink (very like a Taisol) or almost any other cheap heatsink will do fine.

If you are going to spend a bunch of money on a heatsink and fan, I suggest the Thermalright SLK-800 (about $38 without fan) with a large adjustable 80mm fan. There are many good coolers for a lower price than the SLK-800, but the only ones that match its performance are not cheap. Alpha's PAL-8045 ($35 without fan) and Swiftech's MCX-462+ ($44 without fan) are also very good performers when equipped with relatively-quiet 80mm fans, but mounting the huge heatsinks through the motherboard holes is a pain.

For a good 80mm fan, I like ThermalTake's SmartFan 2, (about $17 with rheostat and thermal control) which is even available with blue LEDs in the "CoolMod" version (about $24). My CPU has an adjustable 80x25 mm Y.S. Tech NFD1281259B-2F fan ($8 including rheostat) that does a fine job on a PAL-8045 without making a lot of racket. If you put something insanely loud like an 80x38mm Vantec Tornado {incredibly-slow flash animation site} ($15) or a Delta FFE on your heatsink, you can get amazing results (though still not as good as a water-cooled system) but the noise level (well over 40dB) is completely intolerable. Even with an external speed controller, the Tornado's bearings are noisier than the Y.S. Tech's.

Short of spending $45 to $65 on one of these three coolers with a high-quality 80mm fan, there are some decent performers available for less. ThermalTake's Volcano 7+ ($38 with fan & 3-speed switch) comes with lots of thin skivved copper fins to provide plenty of surface area and a 3-speed 70x25mm fan. The Volcano9 ($25 with fan, speed control and thermal control) has a decent number of thin aluminum fins on a copper slug with an 80x25mm SmartFan 2. Under $25, there are even more coolers from which to choose. CoolerMaster probably has the largest selection of inexpensive heatsinks. Some of them do pretty well for under $12, including fan.

Finally, most heatsinks come with pre-applied heat transfer goop or with a small tube of standard white silicone heat transfer paste. (The SLK-800 does not). The white goop works fine. The premier heat transfer paste for overclockers is Arctic Silver. A $10 tube of Arctic Silver 3 will last through 50 or more heatsink installations.

Here's a previous thread where we discussed most of the heatsinks mentioned above:
http://www.tech-report.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1871

If you haven't already, you should read Dan's CPU Cooler Review that Ate Sheboygan as well as his CPU Cooler Snap Judgement Guide.

You didn't mention Vantec's AeroFlow HSF's.

I look for one that has a copper slug in contact with the CPU core, a lot of surface area to exchange heat with the moving air and a fan with high capacity and low noise. A large fan spinning slowly will make less noise than a small high-speed fan when both are providing the same air flow. A 38 cfm 7000rpm 60x25mm fan is obnoxiously noisy, while a 38cfm 80x25mm can be nearly inaudible.

Hi. Well your ideal HSF would be a Zalman Flower CNPS-6000cu. It's made out of 462g of pure copper and has 2600cm/square of surface area, and comes with a 92mm speed adjustable fan, which can spin between 1500-2500rpm! Here's a shot of the cooler if your not sure on it's looks.



It's a massive extremely low rpm fan, it's quiet at full speed, but at the lower speed, it's totally inaudible! I've purchased this HSF for my silent system which will be going in my room and running 24/7 performing folding tasks (see why it has to be silent?). Until I get mi silent system though, I'm using it in mi main system, which is contained in a tiny ATX "desktop" case. I must say, that I'm extremely impressed indeed. It can keep a AthlonXP 1900+ @ 1.64ghz / 1.76v at the following temperatures:

Fan @ 2500rpm

Full load: 46*c
Idle: 41*c

Fan @ 1500rpm

Full load: 48*c
Idle: 43*c

Pretty impressive to say I have a very cramped ATX "desktop" case. It'll be interested to see what I'm getting when I replace mi AthlonXP 1900+ with a XP 2600+, and use mi XP 1900+ in mi silent system @ stock speed / 1.65v in a proper sized midi "tower" case.

Pattouk, wat's the room temperature when you tested those? I like silent fans, the only I've known so far are the stock Intel ones for P4s..

Hi. The average room temperature that my system works in is usually 25*c.

I was also wondering about internal airflow, like moving air in and out of the case. How necessary is it to have a case fan that takes hot air out and a fan that takes air in?

If you don't already, I would highly suggest getting both an intake and exhaust fan for your case. Case airflow can make all the difference in the world. You could spend a huge wad of money on an expensive heatsink and fan, but if there i little or no airflow in your case, that expensive hsf will help you very little. I personally have one of those big Chenming aluminum cases and have 4 case fans currently installed (excluding powersupply which has 2 fans) and there is still room for one more (120 mm). My temps are pretty nice in my system even though I still have the stock hsf unit (running XP 2000+). I attribute most of the temperature control to my case fans and the aluminum properties of my case.

Hi. I agree with eckslax on that one. If you don't have good case ventilation, that'll mean the lack of cool air passing over the HSF, which in turn, will transfer all the retained heat energy in the HSF which is conducted off the CPU, into the cool passing air, and thus the effective cooling of the CPU is sustained. If you don't have a good ventilated case and therefore no cool air passing over the HSF, is doesn't matter how spectacular your HSF is, Swiftech MC-462 or Coolermaster AAC-001, when the HSF reaches the capacity in terms of the amount of heat it can retain, the efficient cooling of the CPU is lost.