TR Forums

Building my gaming rig with:
-COOLER MASTER Storm Sniper SGC-6000-KXN1-GP Black Steel, ABS Plastic, Mesh bezel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
-GIGABYTE GA-890FXA-UD5 AM3 AMD 890FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
-AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition Thuban 3.2GHz Socket AM3 125W
-G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL7D-4GBRM
-XFX HD-687A-ZNFC Radeon HD 6870 1GB 256-bit DDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity

Looking to OC my CPU, but conflicted on wether I need to beef up my cooling beyond the stock fan. Case has 2x200mm fans and a 120mm ... some case owners have complained that aftermarket CPU fan/sinks actually hampered the airflow in the machine.

Q1 - Should I invest in a cooling solution or stick with the AMD stock fan?
Q2 - If upgrading, what product would you recommend (not looking to break the bank)?

Depends on how far you wanna go. Coolermaster Hyper 212+ is the cooler you want.

DancinJack wrote:

Coolermaster Hyper 212+ is the cooler you want.

Would you suggest installing the optional 2nd fan, or just sticking with the one that comes with it?

MightyTerp wrote:

DancinJack wrote:

Coolermaster Hyper 212+ is the cooler you want.

Would you suggest installing the optional 2nd fan, or just sticking with the one that comes with it?

One should be plenty. Your case should have decent airflow as it is.

You can usually get cooler temps and/or less noise from aftermarket fans (I'm always use an aftermarket fan on systems I build, but mostly for temps) but if you're worried about the money I would give it a go first with the stock cooler and see if it suits your needs. If it doesn't then you can step up to something better, with the knowledge that at least you tried it out.

If you've got the time to do some reading, I'd check out frostytech for reviews:
http://www.frostytech.com/

And they've got a Top 10 list too:
http://www.frostytech.com/top5heatsinks.cfm

Hope that helps!

Let us know what you choose and how it goes.

I've purchased the Coolermaster Hyper 212+ but, for the life of me, I couldn't get all four of the retention plate screws to line-up with the back plate.
I have a Gigabyte P55-UD3R motherboard with an Intel i5 750 chip.
Any idea why... ? Thanks.

Old Same wrote:

I've purchased the Coolermaster Hyper 212+ but, for the life of me, I couldn't get all four of the retention plate screws to line-up with the back plate.
I have a Gigabyte P55-UD3R motherboard with an Intel i5 750 chip.
Any idea why... ? Thanks.

I did not get an exact fit on the first try too. You need to be super careful with which screwhole setting that you choose. IIRC you need to pick the middle one all the time, on the backplate and on the "clip".

Thanks for advice and I'll give it another go, Flying Fox.

FF is right. The spots you want for 1156 are both the "middle" position on the clip and backplate. I admit installing is a little finicky and easiest probably when the motherboard is removed from the case, but give it a few shots and you should get it right.

You will be impressed with how much quieter the 120mm Coolermaster Hyper 212+ is than the stock fan. I bought a second 120mm scyth fan so I could both push and pull air through the heatsink.

Two fans are better than two but, my MB only has one four pin fan connector.
And, my Cooler Master HAF 922 runs very cool. Still... .

you dont need more than 1 4-pin fan connector if you have PWN fans. chain them together and you can control them from your bios. ive got 4 PWN fans, 3 arctic cooling and the 1 cooler master that came with the hyper 212+ heatsink. i set them to silent since i dont overclock and rather have silence.