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Hey guys,

I'm looking for an efficient and quiet CPU cooler (water cooling excluded for financial reasons) and it must meet the following criteria:

a) 120mm push-pull configuration @ 800-1000 rpm for extra quiet operation
b) Minimum distance between the cooler base and heat spreader: 45mm
c) The cooler has to fit my current Thermaltake Mambo 200mm wide case + a side panel mounted, 80x80x25 fan
d) The more heatpipes, the better
e) Lack of backplate is not an option
f) Max. budget: $65

Thus far, the best I've come across are the Scyhte Mugen 3 PCGH Edition and the Zerotherm ZT-10D Smart. Also, please keep in mind that I'm not willing to change my case (yet) and I don't intend to overclock my system. Please advise.

If you really want quiet, look into Noctua. Their NH-U12P SE2 (http://noctua.at/main.php?show=productview&products_id=31&lng=en) is one of their less 'extreme' offerings... it doesn't have a ton of heat pipes, but it is quiet, dissipates heat well, and is smaller than some of their other solutions (also I use it with the lowest-RPM adapters). This is what I use on my i5 2500k @ 4.4Ghz with minimal case fans, and it keeps it plenty cool at all times. You'll have to check the specs to see if it will have the right physical fit. On my motherboard, I have 2 RAM sticks, but if I wanted to install the other 2 I'd have to use low profile RAM to fit with both fans.

Noctua's other solutions are worth taking a look at, as well.

If you're not going to overclock then you don't need a 120 mm cooler. A 92 mm cooler will be completely adequate. I'm using a Cooler Master Hyper TX3 92 mm cooler and it keeps a 2500K OC'd to 4.0 GHz plenty cool enough and it's very quiet. Noctua also makes a 92 mm cooler and I think it would be much higher quality than a TX3 and probably guaranteed virtually silent.

Why are you asking for such a powerful cooler if you have no intention of overclocking?

I've had a 92mm fan on my former rig, it was a bit louder than expected, and didn't dissipate the heat really well, my Phenom II X2 545 had 40 degrees C on idle, so I thought, a CPU with 95W TDP might only be cooled adequately by a bigger cooler ... But thanks for the advice, I'll save a lot of money not buying something senseless.

I am a big fan of the Hyper 212+ and Corsair A50/A70..........great cooling for the money, and you can catch them on sale for between $10-$30 AR.
(My last A50 cost me $11 AR)

Dposcorp wrote:

I am a big fan of the Hyper 212+ and Corsair A50/A70..........great cooling for the money, and you can catch them on sale for between $10-$30 AR.
(My last A50 cost me $11 AR)

If you're willing to deal with rebates that's great. I can't stand rebates. I'd rather pay the extra $10 If it does come down to the Hyper 212+ I'd suggest the Hyper 212 EVO, which is essentially the 212+ without gaps between the heatpipes.

But still, if he's not overclocking then a 120 mm heatsink is overkill. A Hyper TX3 would work. But the real boss 92 mm cooler would be the Noctua NH-U9B SE2

roadkill1 wrote:

I've had a 92mm fan on my former rig, it was a bit louder than expected, and didn't dissipate the heat really well, my Phenom II X2 545 had 40 degrees C on idle, so I thought, a CPU with 95W TDP might only be cooled adequately by a bigger cooler ... But thanks for the advice, I'll save a lot of money not buying something senseless.

Was your "former" 92mm fan heatsink a tower-style one? If so, I'd suspect a mounting or ventillation problem, if not then 40C idle is...more in the range of a downward-flow HSF. If silent operation is really high priority, I would suggest a 120mm tower-style HSF. It will be overkill as far as cooling is concerned, but that also means that the fan will spend most/all of its time at min RPMs which will generally be quieter than a 92mm fan at min RPMs.
That being said, a good quality 92mm tower-style HSF like the Noctua is likely to be just as quiet, although you'll have to decide whether or not its worth almost twice as much. (since its not PWM, you can also force the Noctua fan to run at min RPMs regardless of the cpu temp with their included in-line resistors.)

Hardware Secrets has a pretty extensive list of HSF's tested. Unfortunately they oftentimes only graph temps, the rest you have to look at in their table above. The Hyper 212 EVO has a strong showing in their tests, maybe a little too strong...

Thanks guys for your opinions, I think I'll go for a Hyper 212 EVO. The three main reasons (well...besides the obvious ones like high performance and extremely low noise)

a) PWM - the ones I selected only have rpm reductors
b) direct heatpipe contact - neither the Mugen 3 PCGH, nor the ZT-10D have this
c) weight - only ~570g with one fan vs. ~900g the mugen and zt-10 have. This puts considerably less stress on the mobo in case of transportation.

Noctua is out of the question because it's more expensive then any of the coolers mentioned above. MIR is as well, out of the question, because this notion is unheard of in my country . So thank you again for enlightening me.

Moved to the cooling forum.
--JustAnEngineer, SBA forum moderator

My Antec Kuhler H20 is pretty quiet and I paid $50 at Microcenter for it.