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Sorry again to trouble you all and pick your minds and gathered experiences.

I am purchashing a ASUS M4A87TD EVO AMD Motherboard and coupling it with a AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor in a Antec Nine Hundred case. I do not want to run into a heating issue, so I ask all of thee. What is the absolute best cooling system? Water cooling or aftermarket Fan & Heatsinks? If Water cooled, which model is best rated/highly recommended. Same of Fan & 'sink (if they are better than water cooled).

Thank you all for the responses and recomendations,

Is the absolute best cooling system what you need? There needs to be a bit more detail. Are you looking to overclock the bajeebies out of it? Do you have a really hot room? What is your budget? And if your budget is unlimited, go with an Intel i5 2500k and just overclock it on a stock air cooler.

Absolute best?

Well assuming you plan on using your PC and not just as a bench table (talking about liquid nitrogen cooling here), the best you can probably do in real life 24hr use are these refrigeration cases that are out there.
http://www.frozencpu.com/cat/l2/g1/c195 ... hange.html
http://www.ldcooling.com/shop/l/51-ld-p ... hange.html

The ones I list is a little on the pricey side, but I've seen them as low as like 800 bucks all enclosed in the past. I remember this little asetek model floating about... anyway...

From there its like water cooling with various setups.

A brief mention of peltier plates is noted here for formality, but they pretty much are non viable these days.

You'd be much better off putting money into a faster processor than spending more than $30 on a heatsink solution. You can get excellent overclocking results from reasonably priced tower heatsinks these days, higher end solutions are wasteful unless you're already buying high end gear (and even then, only if you're wanting to really push an overclock and even then I personally question the benefit for most people).

More details would be helpful -- what matters to you? Are you planning to overclock? How much do you care about noise level?

If you're planning to run at stock speed and don't mind if you can hear the fan when the system is under load, the stock cooler should be adequate. A mid-range heatpipe cooler with a large low RPM fan should give you near-silent cooling at stock speeds, even under load. I'd say water cooling is recommended only if you plan to overclock *and* want to keep it really quiet.

Well yeah you don't need much to get 85-90% of your max overclock with your cpu other than a good air cooler, but the guy is asking, in theory what is the best possible cooling system you can that is actually viable for 24hr use? His own words : "the absolute best"

Its actually an interesting question as I haven't really looked into the extreme cooling market in like 5 years. Not sure what is viable these days. Phase change coolers and integrated cases have been around though for like 7 years I think...

My main concern is heat with a noise level as a secondary, but still highly important concern. I want to overclock, and practically everyone has advised me to change the stop fan & 'sink for that of a better aftermarket or water coolant, but I am not looking for spend a redicululous amount either. $200 max with $100 about the range I'd prefer. I don't want the CPU to overheat on me when I push it as hard as I'd like to.

Sunburn74 wrote:

Well yeah you don't need much to get 85-90% of your max overclock with your cpu other than a good air cooler, but the guy is asking, in theory what is the best possible cooling system you can that is actually viable for 24hr use? His own words : "the absolute best"

Its actually an interesting question as I haven't really looked into the extreme cooling market in like 5 years. Not sure what is viable these days. Phase change coolers and integrated cases have been around though for like 7 years I think...

If the solution that removes the most heat ("absolute best" cooling) is also unacceptably loud or too expensive, then that's not a good answer. That's why I asked a bunch of questions.

DigitalN00b wrote:

My main concern is heat with a noise level as a secondary, but still highly important concern. I want to overclock, and practically everyone has advised me to change the stop fan & 'sink for that of a better aftermarket or water coolant, but I am not looking for spend a redicululous amount either. $200 max with $100 about the range I'd prefer. I don't want the CPU to overheat on me when I push it as hard as I'd like to.

Personally I'd go for a large tower-style heatpipe cooler in this situation. Once you start getting into the more expensive (e.g. water cooling) solutions, you have to start asking yourself whether that money could be more effectively spent on a faster CPU instead.

DigitalN00b wrote:

My main concern is heat with a noise level as a secondary, but still highly important concern. I want to overclock, and practically everyone has advised me to change the stop fan & 'sink for that of a better aftermarket or water coolant, but I am not looking for spend a redicululous amount either. $200 max with $100 about the range I'd prefer. I don't want the CPU to overheat on me when I push it as hard as I'd like to.

Well you should have said so in the opening post. i thought you were getting all philosophical and theoretical with all that stuff about the absolute best.

Get a simple heatink and fan setup. I recommend thermalright as a good starting point, but there are many many others you can choose. Aim to spend 40-60 bucks on the heatsink and you should be good.

But if you want the absolute best possible CPU cooling that is viable for 24hr use cost be darned, it's phase change I think in this day and age. Those things will keep your cpu frosty.

Best bang for the buck - CoolerMaster Hyper 212+ which can be found for around $20 on sale. I'm using it on a 965 B.E. @ 3.7ghz with a bumped multi and default voltages. There are many 'better' coolers out there, but for your needs and a very low price point, its hard to beat.

Walkintarget wrote:

Best bang for the buck - CoolerMaster Hyper 212+ which can be found for around $20 on sale. I'm using it on a 965 B.E. @ 3.7ghz with a bumped multi and default voltages. There are many 'better' coolers out there, but for your needs and a very low price point, its hard to beat.

I have heard of this fan & 'sink, they tell me the thing is ginormous! I wonder if I will have difficulties fiitting in inside an Antec Nine Hundred (dim- 18.40"L x 8.10"W x 19.40"H)?

Thank you everyone for your responses. Any additional model recomendations will be extremely appreciated.

Difficult to recommend a $60-70 cooler when you could put the money towards a i5-2500K or at least an X6 1090.

Silent PC Review focuses more on noise than cooling performance, but gives you a list to work from. Lots of other sites will do cooler roundups with their own slightly different focus, but the order is usually the same.

With a $200 budget, go for a ThermalRight Extreme -120 or Prolimatech Megahelems, and get an i5-2500K + P67/Z68 motherboard instead of the X4 965 + motherboard.

For $100, I would get a x6 1090 instead, and pair it with a CM Hyper 212, and if I have counted right, you still have about $30 left for beer.

If you already have the 945, get a CM Hyper 212+.

I expect the Antec 900 is big enough for any of these tower HS, but always worth double checking which ever HS you choose against your motherboard and case.

If noise was the top priority the advice would be a little different, but much easier just to buy additional power than hope to OC further with extra cooling.

As you have a case with a side window you might also consider the Noctua NH C12P or Zalman 9700 as being a little more showy than a plain tower of aluminium, but less cost effective.

I am using a asetek h50 type cooler on my 2600k with low speed silent orange fans,at 4,7ghz she idles at 30-35c loaded 50-60 prime95 and itsa push pull setup,i do like corsairs h80 and h100 setups.