I’ve built countless computers in my days. I’ve built them for myself, for friends and professionally. There is very little I don’t know about building computers, and while I don’t really have the time to keep up with every single new invention I adjust quickly when it’s crunchtime. I started building my own custom computers long before it was common to own a computer, much less assemble it yourself.
While hardware has come and gone there is one axiom that still remains when it comes to building your own computer, and that is the undeniable fact that any included cooler will always suck ass. This is still true, despite the years rolling on and despite technology getting better. Any CPU-cooler that’s included with a retail purchase of a CPU will pretty much blow chunks.
Sure, I admit that it’s money that’s the primary reason. CPU manufacturers simply throw together the cheapest thing that will do the job and ship it, and that’s why the damn things are loud, awfully engineered and keep the CPU at a temperature that is adequate but not in the least impressive.
I recently built a new computer. At first glance the included box-cooler looked pretty decent. It had heatpipes. It had lots and lots of thin aluminium-fins. It had a copper-core.
And when I started the computer it still sounded like a helicopter with severe case of swineflu. In addition, I think that had I put a slice of cold grapefruit on the CPU instead it would’ve been better at cooling the processor.
Why is this?
I think Intel and AMD need to realize they suck at doing this, and tell whatever chinese sweatshop that are assembling these turds to drop dead. Wouldn’t it simply be easier to ask for example Arctic Cooling to build coolers for them to include with a new CPU? Arctic Cooling manages to make coolers that are not only quite efficient, but aren’t ludicrously priced and also fairly quiet.
I don’t agree, I have a stock cooler on my computer for my Intel C2D E6850 and you can’t tell if its on or off if you are sitting ~3m away from it…
Perhaps I’m just picky about noise and cooling
None the less, I can’t remember any stock cooler that I’ve used more than briefly until replaced with a third-party, much quieter and more efficient cooler.
I will also readily admit that there’s tons of very crappy third-party coolers out there as well. Choosing a decent CPU-cooler is as much art as it is science.
Tbh, the stock coolers from intel, or more specificly the last 2 versions for c2d/c2q, are quite good. Atleast when you use a 4-pin connector on a compatible motherboard. The noise levels when not taxing the CPU are realy low, but at max speed the fans sure are noisy but are not something you would be bothered with if you play games. But they do their job and are “free”.
And cooling aside, most cpus are fine with staying at 60c permanently (for wich the intel coolers are designed for), the days with 90w+ TDP is past and most cpus are in the 50-65w range.
Consider a P4 using 25-50% more power (and even more for a P4D) and delivering less then 25% of the performance compared to a cheap C2D.
Yeah ofcourse there are better coolers than the stock ones, but I think there is nothing to complain about when talking about the later intel boxed coolers. Works just fine if you aren’t into overclocking and such
I will admit that I don’t have much experience with the newer coolers included with Intel-chips, but being the hacker that I am I still feel that it’s wasteful to simply design something half-assed just because the chips are designed to tolerate it.
German overengineering ftw!