Many of us have noticed a growing trend of repeat threads. What I have put together here is a list of commmon questions:
Q: How hot is too hot?
A: Typically speaking, most people here dont like their CPU's to go above 60 degrees celcius (140 F)
Q: What is a "good" temperature?
A: If you are not OCing, anything under 60 (max load) is OK. However, if you are overclocking, it will behoove you to have cooler temperatures. A good aircooled setup is around 40c max load. A good "extreme" cooling setup (such as watercooling, peltier use, phase cooling etc.) can be much much lower.
Q: I have a socket A AMD processor. What is a good cooler?
A: There are several very good and very popular heatsinks on the market:
Alpha 8045 ($35 no fan) Is a good all around performer, it is screw mounted, which may lead to incompatibilities with newer (specifically KT400) motherboards. This is not the BEST cooler, but it is an all around good performer, because it does not require massive amounts of airflow to be efficient.
Thermalright AX7 ($28 no fan) This cooler is very popular, it performs similarly to the others mentioned, but requires a bit more airflow to be effecient.
Thermalright SLK800 ($45 no fan) This cooler is a slightly better performer than the rest of the coolers. However, it does require lots of airflow, and is expensive.
Swiftech MCX462 ($48 no fan) This is also a good performer with similar cooling characteristics of the 8045. It mounts with screws, and can be paired with a less powerful fan.
Q: OK, I read all that and I'm still confused which one to get!
A: I will divide this into 3 groups:
High performance: SLK800 Paired with Vantec Tornado (VERY LOUD)
Medium Performance: Alpha 8045/Swiftech MCX462 Paired with a Sunon (Medium Noise)
Low Performance: Alpha 8045/Swiftech MCX462 Paired with a Panaflo. (VERY QUIET)
I will add on to this later, and update frequently, now the mods have something to sticky! So now threads about stickying a main cooling thread will have meaning!
