I've heard good things about the Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 but what about this new Asetek VapoChill Micro? It works on phase change cooling as apposed to normal metal heatsink (the ACF64 has copper pipes also though), which works considerably better. Which do you think I should get?
mrbobbins wrote:There's a nice group test on coolers in this months PC format, i'll have a look later and then present their professional opinion as my own
He really does!!, he got a Zalman cos he's a quiet PC kinda guy, the standard pentium cooler was too loud for him. My case is like a hoover anyway so no point in me getting a quiet CPU cooler, I'd have to get new fans and PSU then.
The big question is, are you going to be overclocking? If you are, you want the biggest heatsink you can find.
I too recommend Zalman products, as they are generally a) made with a lot of copper, b) are relatively quiet, and c) have a great reputation.
generally phase change is just a waste of time and money if you're not an overclocker nutjob. At the most, a watercooling system will be more than adequate for your cooling needs. If you want to go watercooling, the Zalman Resorator is a great all-in-one solution.
I knew someone who bought Zalman kit, the threw it away very quickly because the bigass fan had a duff bearing that caused the machine to make an intermittant shrill grinding noise. In a quiet PC, in a quiet room, at the bottom of some quiet stairs in the quiet basement of a quiet house, that can be very irritating.
I've got a Zalman from QuietPC on my old PC. It's very quiet indeed and very efficient. It makes a quiet hum now instead of sounding like the inside of the wheel bays of the 747 coming from Russia.
I need a new case before I do anything. Mine's kinda small and has no side vents for my case fan (the back vent sucks ass). That way I can assemble my case fan, a larger heatsink/fan combination and some sexy light displays! All the fan/heatsink combinations I've been looking at are in the region of £10-£20 anyway, nothing too uber (like WC systems at £110! ).