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Hmm what to buy

G

Gautama2

Golden Member
Should I go with an AC Freezer 64 PRO for my am2 x2 3800+ for overclocking

Or a Zalman vf700cu-2 for my XFX 7600gt XXX edition?
 
It doesn't seem rational to make spending choices between one cooling priority and another.

My dentist dumped a Freezer 64 on me that he decided not to use -- asking for a few bucks. I took it off his hands, but have no use for it.

It's too heavy, too bulky. For CPU cooling, go to overclockers.com for Citarella's database of heatsink performance results and thermal resistances. I'd pick a ThermalRight CPU cooler over the Freezer any day.

On the matter of the 7600GT graphics card. There is a PCI-E version and an AGP version. I have the AGP version, and was hoping to install a heatpipe cooler on it. The Zalman cooler you mentiion is not a heatpipe cooler, but it at least fits that card.

For the AGP version, I can guarantee that the Sytrin KuFormula VF-1 cooler fits the card if the two mounting holes are 78mm apart, and could probably be made to fit cards with shorter distances between the holes. However, with my 7600GT, the Sytrin sits at an angle unintended by the manufacturer, making it difficult to deploy a fan. Even so, as a passive cooler with the card running at full load, the peak temperature stays below 60C.

The ThermalRight V-1 Ultra will fit the 7600GT. But on my LeadTek AGP version, you must remove the high-speed-interconnect aluminum heatsink, bend two of the fins 1/4" from the side of the sink in opposite directions, or trim those fins of about 1/4" square pieces of metal. This -- so you can fit the TR V-1 mounting bracket. After that, home free.
 
Correction.

My dentist gave me a Freezer 64 -- not the Freezer 64 Pro.

I found a review on this heatsink. The unit's specifications show a thermal resistance of 0.17 C/W

ThermalRight, Scythe, Zalman and other manufacturers now make heatpipe coolers with TR values as low as 0.11 C/W. The 0.17 C/W rating for the Freezer 64 is only a hair better than ratings for the old Zalman CNPS-7000 and 7700 copper monstrosities.

Pick a better CPU cooler than the Freezer.
 
"Freezer or Freezer Pro at half the price."

Sure. I won't quarrel with that. Products with lackluster performance ratings will sell for less, and profits go to the manufacturer who can trim his costs while producing the most effective design.

I spent a lot of time evaluating heatsink and cooling solutions, and there should be enough from many sources on this particular forum to give guidelines to product selection and use.

A thermal resistance of 0.17 C/W is a low performance rating for heatpipe coolers produced during the last two years. The TR XP120 showed a test rating of between 0.14 and 0.15 C/W; the TR XP90 was around 0.15; the TR XP90Cu was closer to 0.12. Later ratings for the TR SI-120, the Scythe Ninja, the Zalman CNPS-9500 and others would be in the 0.10 to 0.12 range. This is so close to the effective thermal resistance for Swiftech's flagship water-cooling kit that it would seem to make water-cooling fruitless unless the object is solely to eliminate noise.

The design of the Freezer also does not go far in ventilating the surrounding motherboard components.

But I'll sell you my dentist's Freezer 64 for $15 if you want it -- still in blister-wrap, with all the fittings, parts and instructions.
 
There's a huge difference between the Freezer 64 and the Freezer 64 Pro. The Pro has an extra heatpipe, more fins, and a larger fan and has significantly better cooling performance (bit worse than the XP-120, but a lot cheaper). Of course, I'm using an XP-120 I picked up from a friend for 30 bucks, since it wouldn't fit on his motherboard, but if I had to get something now it'd probably be the Freezer.
 
The thermal resistance data I found was for the Freezer 64 Pro -- the model you said was a significant improvement.

The ThermalRight SI-120 represents a significant improvement over the XP-120 in terms of thermal resistance. The more recent model -- I think it's called the "SI-128" -- actually falls down in comparison to the SI-120 and Ultra-120 coolers.

Here's the source on the Freezer 64 Pro's thermal resistance:

CDR inf

The earlier model in my possession -- I have not weighed, but it feels like a ton of lead. The "pro" model weighs 528 grams. The ThermalRight models weigh about 150 to 200 grams less than that, although the choice of 120mm fans for the ThermalRight models puts them back at a "neck-and-neck" parity with the Freezer Pro. For instance, a certain model of Panaflo 120x38mm fan weighs in at something between 200 and 250 grams.

For the weight -- it's a wash, but for the performance, the ThermalRight models have it hand over fist.
 
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