Cooling IT

As frequencies increase again for multicore CPUs from both Intel and AMD the importance of a good, efficient cooler becomes even more important. Though so called 'stock' air fan coolers that are supplied with the retail versions of modern CPUs are sufficient in cooling their associated CPUs at normal conditions, they are not the quietest or best cooling that can be used if you want to either overclock your processor or build an almost silent system.

I was confronted with both conditions for two different systems recently, one based on an AMD processor and the other an Intel, so I decided to investigate the technology of CPU cooling. There are definitely some weird and wonderful solutions out there including gas and water-based cooling for more money than you would pay for the processor itself. However in the more realistic world of air cooling fans the name of Zaalman was considered the best, but I could not bring myself to purchase beautiful copper cooling solutions for £50 or more when the price of the CPUs they were to cool were not that much more money.

In the region of £15 to £20 the name of Arctic Cooling came to the front, so I purchased one of these to try. I was amazed how much cooler and quieter the Intel system was! I quickly purchased the AMD version of the Arctic Cooler Freezer aluminium cooler. These seem the optimum price/performance solution as the CPU temperature and noise level dropped considerably when they were installed. Thoroughly recommended!