LGA 1366 CPU Cooler Group Test

Thanks.

Themal Right Ultral 120 XT still the best air cooler.

The Nero looks like an epic buy. £55-65 for a heatsink is hilarious. What the hell are these people thinking?

TY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Finally is was going nutz trying to see if i could get any benchs on my V8, and how it did!!!!
OMG this could have been so usefull like a month ago!!!!!
HAHAH
Bit-Tech i Love u Anyways

BTW i was wondering, i just got to see u tested on an 830 Stacker by CM, did the TRUE fit in it with the Fan rack?
Ty for the ansewer

Good review as always folks ;)

Spotted a small error on page 7, in the results graph, the key for load is the same color as the key for idle.

I think the performance on the Noctua is capped by the fact that it runs on 4 heat pipes. If they had say 6 or 8 pipes I think the cooling might be a bit better.

Nice, Personally I'd still go with the thermalright, but nice read.

I never new Stackers had front to pack cooling?

I bought the Cooler Master V8 at Frys back in December (US$69.99 before taxes), and the box there already included the LGA1366 mounting hardware (I don't find the cooler listed on the Frys website), and I don't think there were any screws that required tightening by hand, so I wonder if you were doing something wrong when mounting it. I'll admit turning over the motherboard to tighten the nuts was inconvenient, but I consider the mounting more secure than the push pins used by some other coolers - especially since I had a Cooler Master Hyper TX2 a while back, and two of the push pins popped free.

TRUE cheesecake!

can i use a LGA775 TRUE with the newer sockets?? they do sell the mounting kit, but is the size at base of the cooler the same??

Originally Posted by wuyanxu
TRUE cheesecake!

can i use a LGA775 TRUE with the newer sockets?? they do sell the mounting kit, but is the size at base of the cooler the same??

Yep, it's the same - just grab a 1366 bracket and you're ready to go.

Local e-tailer here in Australia, PC Case Gear, claims LGA1366 mounting hardware now comes included with the V8 (and also the V10). Speaking of, any chance we can see the V10 on here soon? I'm in a terrible situation deciding between the V8 and the V10 - V10 is AU$100 more than the V8, however it has a second fan that sits over the RAM, and also has a peltier, hence the cause for my pickle

It's equally fun and sad to see an old cooler still beat the newcomers... Thermalright just seems to know what they're doing. Drop the fancy-pants designs and concentrate in the cooling (:

I got a Xigmatek yesterday with the same direct-contact base that the Akasa (and Vendetta) use, except that it has four heatpipes instead of three. The problem I'm trying to deal with is that there are these very small... basically indents between the heatpipes and the parts of the square aluminum bit that pokes through to the bottom, so the base isn't perfectly flat - it's more like: ___^___^___ ...etc. I know it's designed that way, but I can't figure out what the best way to spread the thermal grease across that kind of surface would be. Any suggestions?

Originally Posted by CardJoe
Yep, it's the same - just grab a 1366 bracket and you're ready to go.

many thanks. good to hear, TRUE stood the test of time :) even cross generations.

I would like to see V10 benches too,
the fact is i got a nice Tri-Channel DDR3 Viper Series memory kit, they too big, if there is really a nice change then ill be cutting them hahahaha cuz i would love to see the v10 working at full capacity

Buy the Noctua and use one of the included fans as a case fan for a quiet system rather than just quiet cpu cooler.
Seems like a good plan to me.
However, having said that, Akasa seem to have nailed making cheap high performance coolers.

I might have missed it but what fan did you use on the TRUE cooler?

The TRUE is the best performing heatsink when airflow/noise isn't an issue.From what i have seen, if you lower the pressure (using quiet fans) the Noctua usually gets on pair even beating the TRUE.

The fins on the Thermalright cooler are thinner than the ones on the Noctua. They are also more fins (tightly packed). This results in more resistance for the air and that's probably why the cooler benefits from high flow/pressure fans. The extra heatpipes adds more resistance since they block mor of the flow through the fins for the TRUE.

It would be fun if you could test this... For example use The U12P and TRUE with dual deltas and the put a one or two quiet fans at very low RPM and see which wins.

Nice article guys.
It will definetely come in handy for people who are building an i7 setup!
One question though: is it just me or does the article exclude the result analysis for the Thermalright cooler? I can not find it anywhere...

Bought a Noctua 1366 recently, its a good cooler. I was thinking of getting the Akasa Nero, but there weren't any reviews out at the time. Oh well. :)

Cool, nice review. The Akasa isn't available here, so I went with the Noctua and my performance figures seem right on par with what you folks have been getting. I'm very happy with the unit, and particularly happy that I got the Noctua on sale... which made it all the more sweeter.

Why no table of sizes? So if I want to see if any of these will fit in my old skool ATC I have to go and find the specs when it would have been so cool for you guys to compile the info (and verify the sizes quoted are correct)

How the hell did you get idle temps of 10C? Run these tests in a refridgerator or something?

These chips are hot.

Originally Posted by Denithor
How the hell did you get idle temps of 10C? Run these tests in a refridgerator or something?

That's a point, refridgerators are between 0*C and 4*C and so even if they were in a fridge a delta of 6-10*C from room to idle temps is pretty much unheard of...?

Originally Posted by Jenny_Y8S
Why no table of sizes? So if I want to see if any of these will fit in my old skool ATC I have to go and find the specs when it would have been so cool for you guys to compile the info (and verify the sizes quoted are correct)

They are legally obliged to provide the correct sizes - it's not a marketing term that's hand wavy. Also, the specs are on every page for every cooler.

The temperatures are shown in DELTA T - the difference between the ambient case temp and recorded CPU temp. Core i7 has a fantastic low power mode.

I might have missed it but what fan did you use on the TRUE cooler?

The one that comes with the retail 1366 kit from Thermalright.

Originally Posted by Denithor
How the hell did you get idle temps of 10C? Run these tests in a refridgerator or something?

The results are the Delta T values - the difference between the ambient room temperature (22-23°C) and the temperature of the cooler. We only display Delta T as including the numbers for the ambient temperature just makes the graphs messy and confusing.