Well for my new build, I want everything as good as I can afford, and I have thought about getting a HSF to replace the stock one, the Processor I'm getting is the Q9450 Quad 2.66Ghz, I won't be overclocking this, as I have never done so before, and therefore do not wish to fry this £230 processor. I have thought about a few fans, however I don't know which ones are good. So, Should I get one even though I'm not Overclocking? And if so, which one would be a good one to get?

Thanks

Nope, if your not overclocking there is no point really, not unless you are going to have a clear side panel and want a fancy HSF

no, the pannel is solid Aluminium, I was going to have a clear side, but there isn't an option for this case.

The stock HSF is fine on that processor. It also looks quite cool as it is clear. If it is the one I am thinking of!

How noisy is it? I would go for a 120mm fan and adapter if it is noisy.

Well I don't know what it's like because I haven't got it yet, I suppose I'll find out when I do.

You may be able to improve airflow in your case with a 3rd party hsf as they tend to have the fans mounted at the sides of the heatsink rather than on the top.

The stock intel fan mount blows air down onto the motherboard. This air is still rather warm as it's hitting the motherboard pcb directly after passing through the heatsink. So a 3rd party HSF with the fan mounted on the side will improve on this as it expels it's air directly into the case exhaust fan.

It's a perfectly fine hsf if not oc'ing (as SW states) but if you want a quieter pc I'd suggest an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7. I mean, it's only £14. Plus you get to remove the useless generic T.I.M that comes with the cpu and apply some Arctic Silver.

I agree with Alex. If you're spending £230 on a processor, you may as well get it a decent cooler.

I am also a huge fan of the Artic Freezer. Superb engineering for a very small price.

Ok, I might go with that then, is that the best cooler you would recomend, as if I am definatly not using the stock cooler, I will get the OEM version of the proccesor to keep the costs down as I won't ahve to pay for the fan. Oh, and I am getting the Lian-Li pc-p60 case, so space shouldn't be a problem.

There's only one other hsf on the market that cools a cpu to a lower level than the AC7 and thats the Tuniq Tower.

But the Tuniq costs over twice as much, is nearly 3 times as heavy (well past the stress limits for a mobo and Intel's rather useless mounting system) and only cool's a cpu a degree or two lower.

So yes, the AC7 is the best hsf on the market.

oh, ok, I also heard soemthing about another cooler, also by tuniq I think, that has a 120mm fan in the middle, I can't rememebr the name of it though, whats that like, anyone know?

EDIT: after a little looking, I think that is the Tuniq tower, but yes, it costs about double, and if I wanted it with LED's It would be about 3 times the price of the Arctic freezer. So I think I'll stick with the cheaper Arctic freezer.

I agree If your going to fork out that much for a CPU you should cool it properly. Regardless or fashon also the stock intel coolers are annoyingly loud. Check out this website they have the best coolers around for all PC components.

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