I am so shocked with the performance of the Arctic Cooling Alpine 64 PRO Rev.2 that I decided to give it a small write up.
I recently built a second computer to link up to my TV for further testing, and I decided it was time to buy an AMD CPU! I ended up going for the "AMD (Piledriver) FX-8320 3.50GHz (4.00GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 8-Core Processor" since it was under £100 and offers pretty reasonable performance. Many thanks to community member Mirv who funded this.
I was shocked, however, to find that the CPU fan that AMD supply with this CPU is basically a jet engine, and I couldn't put up with it at all. You could hear it over any game, and it soured my initial experience with the new chip somewhat. I am not overstating just how loud the stock AMD fan is, it's terrible.
I decided to look for a cheap alternative that had good reviews, and I settled with the "Arctic Cooling Alpine 64 PRO Rev.2" (I am not affiliated with the store linked!). This heat sink and fan came at under £7, so you would think it would be pretty shocking, but I am pleased to say it's absolutely amazing.
My temperatures have dropped by at least 10 degrees, and the noise level is much more acceptable. It's not silent, but it's also not loud so it offers a pretty good price/performance bargain for anyone looking at getting a new one. It lets off a very gentle sound, so it won't take me long to forget it's even there.
I do find it a bit amusing that a £6.89 cooler can beat the stock AMD one at temperatures, and at noise level. Although it's not all that surprising, how much can a thin plastic fan and some metal really cost when mass produced?
I also much prefer the way AMD coolers clip into the motherboard, I find the way Intel coolers are attached with the push clips infuriated, so this is a point in AMD's favour right now.
Next up to buy: An AMD GPU to make it a fully fledged AMD testing box for reports and reviews, and you can help by subbing to use on Patreon, or one-off paypal tips. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
I recently built a second computer to link up to my TV for further testing, and I decided it was time to buy an AMD CPU! I ended up going for the "AMD (Piledriver) FX-8320 3.50GHz (4.00GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 8-Core Processor" since it was under £100 and offers pretty reasonable performance. Many thanks to community member Mirv who funded this.
I was shocked, however, to find that the CPU fan that AMD supply with this CPU is basically a jet engine, and I couldn't put up with it at all. You could hear it over any game, and it soured my initial experience with the new chip somewhat. I am not overstating just how loud the stock AMD fan is, it's terrible.
I decided to look for a cheap alternative that had good reviews, and I settled with the "Arctic Cooling Alpine 64 PRO Rev.2" (I am not affiliated with the store linked!). This heat sink and fan came at under £7, so you would think it would be pretty shocking, but I am pleased to say it's absolutely amazing.
My temperatures have dropped by at least 10 degrees, and the noise level is much more acceptable. It's not silent, but it's also not loud so it offers a pretty good price/performance bargain for anyone looking at getting a new one. It lets off a very gentle sound, so it won't take me long to forget it's even there.
I do find it a bit amusing that a £6.89 cooler can beat the stock AMD one at temperatures, and at noise level. Although it's not all that surprising, how much can a thin plastic fan and some metal really cost when mass produced?
I also much prefer the way AMD coolers clip into the motherboard, I find the way Intel coolers are attached with the push clips infuriated, so this is a point in AMD's favour right now.
Next up to buy: An AMD GPU to make it a fully fledged AMD testing box for reports and reviews, and you can help by subbing to use on Patreon, or one-off paypal tips. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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I wouldn't worry about the coolers TDP in this case since the CPU will throttle itself if its temperature gets too high. Also TDP is only a general guideline most of the time since the efficacy of a CPU cooler is heavily influenced by a large number of differing factors that include airflow and the ambient temperature. You also have to factor in the processors real world usage. E.g. how many cores will be fully utilized and for how long.
It's important to note that a TDP rating isn't a rating for how much power a processor can draw, instead it's a rating that indicates how much heat the cooler will need to dissipate based on what the manufacturer believes to be normal usage. To give an example, a processor with a 125W TDP rating could consume closer to 180W when maxed out. If you were to put a 100% load on a processor for an extended period of time, say to render a 3D scene or encode a 4K video you could easily cause the temperature to rise beyond the acceptable limit even with a cooler that is rated for the recommended TDP.
This scenario however isn't likely given that Liam seems to be using this machine for gaming. As such I'd imagine that the majority of the time he won't even use 4 cores. Much less all 8 cores maxed in a loop that is designed wring every ounce of power out of it.
Last edited by jamesc359 on 16 September 2015 at 10:03 pm UTC
It's important to note that a TDP rating isn't a rating for how much power a processor can draw, instead it's a rating that indicates how much heat the cooler will need to dissipate based on what the manufacturer believes to be normal usage. To give an example, a processor with a 125W TDP rating could consume closer to 180W when maxed out. If you were to put a 100% load on a processor for an extended period of time, say to render a 3D scene or encode a 4K video you could easily cause the temperature to rise beyond the acceptable limit even with a cooler that is rated for the recommended TDP.
This scenario however isn't likely given that Liam seems to be using this machine for gaming. As such I'd imagine that the majority of the time he won't even use 4 cores. Much less all 8 cores maxed in a loop that is designed wring every ounce of power out of it.
Last edited by jamesc359 on 16 September 2015 at 10:03 pm UTC
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TheCrazedMind Sep 22, 2015
I have the exact same cooler as this on my AMD FX-6300 OC'd to 4.0 ghz and this cooler brings my temps down by about 20 degrees as compared to the stock cooler on stock core clock. Great cooler for the money and earned my respect for this company!
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