Fan for LGA1156

[CougTek]

Anyone tried the Thermaltake CLP0556 and knows if it's an improvement over the puny retail cooler Intel ships with its LGA1156 processors? I need a cooler that is 85mm in height or less. The other one I'm looking for is the Arctic Cooling Alpine 11 Pro rev.2. The Thermaltake is cheaper and a lot easier to get for me though.

 

[Stinker]

I have tried neither but the Alpine looks like it would be much quieter than the Thermaltake, even without reading their propaganda.

 

[Mercutio]

I use oversize Scythe Zipang coolers on my i7s, but overall I think the stock cooler on current Intel CPUs is actually a pretty solid product. I think ddrueding went with a Scythe Mugen before he started screwing around with watercooling. Both of those are pretty exotic compared to that Thermaltake, but I'm very convinced that either of the ones you linked to would offer much of an improvement over and above the Intel stock fan, either.

 

[Handruin]

I wasn't very happy with the Intel stock cooler on the LGA1156 i7. The fan would become rather noisy over and above anything else in the system when doing anything above basic web surfing. I was easily reaching the 80 degree C during full-load tests and 35-45C idle temps. I went with the Thermalright MUX-120, but that does not meet Coug's size requirements. I wrote up the improvements about it here.

Back to your two options you provided, I would likely go with the Alpine 11 because of the slower fan speed and heavier weight. They're both relatively inexpensive. Why not get them both and test them? You could probably sell it as an option in one of your systems and still recoup your costs.

 

[CougTek]

I would get them both, but I can't find the Alpine 11 Pro Rev.2 anywhere. And I would prefer to get it from one of my local suppliers. A 15$ cooler is less interesting when you have to pay 15$ of shipping in order to get it.

Do you plan to use two graphic cards in SLI on your P55M-UD4?

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[Handruin]

Wow, $15 shipping on a $15 is quite prohibitive. That makes perfect sense not to order it.

I have no plans to run SLI with my P55M-UD4. I think it defaults to 8x PCIe speeds when two cards are used on a P55 chipset. I didn't need the dual 16x PCIe and extra expense that comes with the LGA 1336 setups. So far I've had no issues with this motherboard/setup.

 

[LiamC]

I actually like the Cooler Master GeminiII S - 4.88" x 4.76" x 2.95" or 124 x 121 x 75. Was reasonably cheap and better/quieter than the stock 775

 

[CougTek]

I've found this small cooler at a local supplier. I plan to order one and compare it to the retail LGA1156 heatsink. I don't expect it to be very good as this heatsink design never gave miraculous results, but the efficiency of the retail Intel heatsink is so low that maybe even that can outdo it.

It certainly won't be silent and if it's anything like those originally made by Zalman, it will generate a significant amount of ratling noise at low speed. But my mini-ITX system is not very quiet to begin with so hopefully, it won't make matters much worse. And if it's not good, at least the price is quite low (17$).

 

[CougTek]

I've reconsidered my purchasing decision regarding the little Xigmatek. I measure the space between the LGA and the PCI-E slot and it won't fit (4mm too large). Neither would Scythe's Big Shuriken or even the Shuriken Rev.B for that matter.

Still looking for a solution...

 

[CougTek]

According to Speedfan 4.41, the idle temperatures of my cores were between 37C and 42C. I fired up the Folding@home client and the temperatures climbed between 83C and 86C. It's making way too much noise for me to sleep next to it, but it has not sutdown by itself yet (~20 minutes, temperatures are stable).

I don't think I'll go on with FAH on that system with the retail heatsink. Especially since a new smell now comes from the tiny box...

 

[time]

Which case, out of interest?

 

[CougTek]

Silverstone SG05B with the 300W power supply. The motherboard is a GigaByte H55N-USB3 and the graphic card is a Power Color Radeon HD 5670 with a dual slot heatsink. Replacing the 3.5" hard drive by a 2.5" model would help the airflow inside the case, but it would not drop the temperature enough to let me run the Folding@Home client continuously.

When I watch movies, even 1080p video, the CPU temperature never reach 50C. So it's a nice little box for someone not doing anything that pushes it too hard. It wasn't quite my goal or I would not have opted for a Core i7 860 (a i5 650 would have been more than enough).

 

[MaxBurn]

I have one of these arriving tomorrow, too bad I am out for the week.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835109022

 

[CougTek]

I almost ordered the Zalman CNPS-8000A. I was pretty sure it would fit in my setup, but I had concerns about its efficiency. So I kept looking for something else. There was a new low profile cooler from SilentX (EFZ-100HA1) that looked good, but SilentX doesn't have a very good reputation from what I read. They seem to be to computer cooling of what Bose is to audio equipement : overpriced and unimpressive. But then I stumbled on a sale at NCIX where they let go the Prolimatech Samuel 17 go for 40$. By my calculations, it should fit, barely, but it should. I ordered two and I'll let you know how effective it is.

With a 120mm fan and six heatpipes, the Prolimatech cannot be worse than the retail Intel heatsink.

 

[CougTek]

It is smaller than I thought, but it still is a nice improvement over Intel's retail heatsink. Here are the pictures :

Top
Side
Bottom
Flush to the PCI-E slot...
...and the RAM
Other side, on the motherboard

Now before posting how bad a photograph I am in the DSLR thread, please realized that those were taken with a 25$ webcam. I know they are quite large (1600x1200).

The temperatures are ~10C lower than with the retail heatsink. The noise is still high, but most of it comes from the smallish power supply inside the SG05.

Under Prime 95
Followed by the Folding@home client

 

[ddrueding]

Wow. That really couldn't be any bigger, could it?

 

[CougTek]

Nope, it could not. It's been quite a challenge to find something better than the retail heatsink that fits on this setup. I cannot even use memory with ramsink.

The system has been running the FAH client for 23 hours without issue so far.

 

[mubs]

Looks like you're a master at working with nano-scale clearances, Coug!

 

[CougTek]

I've finally got my hands on a Thermaltake CLP0556 and it is nothing to write home about. I use it to cool an i5 760 (2.8GHz, not overclocked) and it is struggling, even though the motherboard is on open air. It is definetly not silent. I'll have to compare with the retail heatsink, but I'm not sure it is an improvement.

I guess I expected too much from an 11$ cooler. The Prolimatech Samuel 17 is miles better (and four or five times more expensive with a low-profile 120mm fan). I'll try to post pictures comparing them.

 

[CougTek]

Now I know why the fan is noisy : it idles between 55C and 58C. I won't try running the FAH client on this system until I replace this piece of junk. I'll try the Thermaltake Contac 29 and see how it fares. This is a tower heatsink similar to the Xigmatek HDT1283 that I use in my other two towers. It should be even better than the Prolimatech Samuel 17, but I'll have to try to be sure.