Thermaltake Contact 30 for a Q9500 OCed to 3.8Ghz?

Ok so I realized that I made a slight mistake on my latest PC build (G850 with a Corsair 500 Watt psu and a Geforce GTX 560) in that I realized recently that when I do upgrade to either higher end SB or IB and look to SLI that I'd have to get another power supply as well. As I didn't really want to do that I started looking for a Drive Bay Supplemental power supply to help fuel the next video card.

While I found that they just don't seem to make them anymore (probably due to lack of demand) I did end up on the Thermaltake Clearance / Refurbished websight and found this.

http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/store/Product.aspx?C=1031&SC=1070&SC2=1091&ID=1702

First I want to say there are a LOT of cool things in this section of their sight, amazing cases for super cheap and stuff. Now I saw this and thought about my main machine that's in my rig, the Q9550. I want to say that I absolutely hate the H50 that I use as a cooler on this thing but it was free so I wasn't going to complain too much. Still I can OC this machine to 3.8 Ghz and it's stable (2 hours Prime 95) but the temps are just WAY to high for my liking so I dialed it back to 3.6 for now until I can find a better cooler.

Would the Termaltake Conact 30 do a better job? Even if it was just a comparable Job would it work? For 15$ free shipping its hard to go against such a great deal. Any suggestions if I decide against it? I was originally thinking about just getting an Hyper 212+ . Comments welcomed.

Friends don't let friends use Thermaltake coolers.

Seriously, that is going a little overboard (my first statement), but Thermaltake has a pretty checkered past with coolers, with more bad than good, in my experience. If you are on that tight a budget, go with a Hyper 212+. If you can swing a little more, go with a Thermalright True Spirit. If you can go a little over $50 and your case has 170 mm clearance between the processor and case side door, go with the Thermalright True Spirit 140. That contact 30 doesn't impress me at all in the looks department. Only 3 heatpipes and with wide spacing between them on the base.

muddocktor said:

Friends don't let friends use Thermaltake coolers.

Seriously, that is going a little overboard (my first statement), but Thermaltake has a pretty checkered past with coolers, with more bad than good, in my experience. If you are on that tight a budget, go with a Hyper 212+. If you can swing a little more, go with a Thermalright True Spirit. If you can go a little over $50 and your case has 170 mm clearance between the processor and case side door, go with the Thermalright True Spirit 140. That contact 30 doesn't impress me at all in the looks department. Only 3 heatpipes and with wide spacing between them on the base.

Click to expand...

+1 about friends and TT.

Lol. Ok, couple of things.

What about the Thermaltake Big Typhoon VX?

http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/store/Product.aspx?C=1031&SC=1070&SC2=1091&ID=1731

I used to have a Thermaltake Big Typhoon on an old Socket 939 that kicked major ***, how do you think this compares to the Hyper 212+?

As for case clearance I have plenty of room, I have a large Lan-Li full tower (the Rocketfish Best Buy one) so room isn't an issue. Is the Thermalright True Spirit that good of a cooler vs the Big Typhoon or the Hyper 212+? I can get the Thermalright 120 from Amazon for 30$ or a 140 for 40$ and that seems to be a very comparable price here.

Finally, the 120 vs the 140 if I do go that way is the 140 worth the extra 10$?

Big Typhoon VX - Never tried it, but had an original BT back in the day and it was a good cooler. Not as good as today's offerings, but it was good. As for comparison to the 212+, I would take a guess it would be roughly comparable. But that is just taking a guess. But, the mounting system is just for LGA775, so you won't be bringing it on to the next upgrade either.

True Spirit vs Hyper 212+ - not even close in performance. I haven't actually tested this version yet, but tested the original version (Cogage True Spirit) and it walked all over the 212+, cooling roughly 10 C better and that's with a quieter, lower performance fan to boot. And when I tested the HR-02 Macho, which was a respin of the original HR-02, I saw no dropoff in cooling performance and it uses the exact same base design as the new version True Spirit. The original HR-02 also used the same exact base design as the Cogage True Spirit too, which makes the comparison more even.

Between the True Spirit and True Spirit 140; if the extra money doesn't scare you away, the TS140 is the one to go with then. It's performance is up there equal to the top tier coolers on the market, no matter the price. But, it's also a little wider than most 120 mm fan sized heatsinks too, which could just possibly give clearance problems with the vid card if your mobo has the first PCI-e slot at the very top closest to the nb heatsink. But I had no clearance problems at all with my test board or the Gigabyte P35 board I test fit it on.

BTW, the shipping at Amazon from Nan's Gaming Gear is around $12 to my house, which is why I said around $40 for the TS and $50 for the TS140.

Thanks, I'm not too concerned about taking this cooler to a new build, if I really wanted to I could the Asrock Extreme3 Gen3 has the mounting holes to use a socket 775 cooler on it if you wanted.

Still I think I'm going to go with the Hyper 212 Evo in the end, I used a 212+ awhile back on another Socket 775 build and it went very well. For the cost vs the True Spirit the few reviews that I found that compaired them seemed to say the 212 was either better or as good as the True Spirit and if thats the case I'll just go with what I know for a cheaper price.

Either way thanks for talking me out of the Thermaltake.

The Contac 30 isn't actually a bad cooler. It's within 2 degree's of a Hyper 212 though with AMD at least the retention mechanism isn't as secure. I'm running the slightly old Contact 29 in my HTPC. Nice and quiet when you run stock w/o overclocking. It all comes down to what is costs vs a Hyper 212

I have to agree with the other though. Most ThermalTake products are complete rubbish with the few exceptions being the PIPE101 (once lapped and fitted with a powerful fan), the Big Typhoon, the Contac 29 and Contac 30. They've nothing that competes in high end air cooling though.

Personally I believe the Noctua NH-D14 is a great value solution when you factor in the cost of fans. Certainly a high quality solution.

I wouldn't recommend a lateral move. When you are ready for an upgrade go for a top end HSF cooler. Something along the line of a Noctua NH-D14, Thermalright or Antec 920 Cooler. Besides providing great performance now, a great cooler will last you a least 2 upgrades.

^^^ Noctua or Thermalright. I've sort of gone a little anti closed loop since my H100 failed.

The EVO is a decent choice, but still not the one I would have gone with. I don't know which reviews you have read, but they don't jive with the performance I've seen with the original TS and Hyper 212+, plus the performance HardOCP saw with the new TS120 versus the original Cogage True Spirit. My updated review of the Cogage True Spirit is right here and HardOCP's review is right here. Both myself and HardOCP test with a higher heatload than many reviewers, better than 200 watts. Frosty Tech's reviews don't test but with a high heatload of 150 watts, and that extra 50 watts of heat is what separates the men from the boys, so to speak. But with that said, the EVO isn't a bad heatsink by any means and should do you well.

Well I havn't purchased anything yet. The links you provided do show the True Spirit as a really good cooler (much better than my H50 at least). And the 120 is quite which is what I'm looking for as well, the H50 is just too loud.

I may end up going with the True Spirit, I'm looking to make a purchase soon. I'm actually looking to stop purchasing for this machine, after this I'm thinking only HD's or a new vid card to replace the 295 GTX that I've got in it at the moment and then call it good.

Admit it; you have "the Sickness"! You just can't stand leaving things well enough alone, just like myself and many other folks here!

I'm looking to do some hard drive and SSD upgrades very soon. I just installed my first SSD in a Rosetta crunching machine to test the waters, so to speak and I am amazed at the performance it gives. 12 seconds after it leaves the 1st post screen to booted to the desktop!

I know I'm down with the sickness...... Broke my XBMC Buntu install by trying to install extra for SAMBA file sharing last night..... Might try XBMC on Linux Mint instead

Lol yes I have the sickness.

But for this build again I think I'm almost done. Why? Because I plan on taking the motherboard/processor/ram out of this machine and swapping with the new machine I built for my GF to use. She'd then have the Q9550 (still a damn good processor) at 3.8 with a Geforce 560 non-ti and 8 gigs DDR2 ram and I'd have an IB or SB 2500K, 8 gigs ddr3 ram and a Radeon 6870 Crossfire setup making us both happy. The 295 GTX is gonna have to go up on Ebay or Craigslist or something I guess, poor guy. It was such a happy little GTX card lol.

So the sickness will continue with the IB build, with dreams of SSD's, Crossfired cards, and a custom home made case made of wood that I plan on doing. Ah.... dreams.....

I'd be keen to see pictures of the in progress wood computer case.... You don't see too many of those, especially beautifully executed cases with nice wallnut grain, a nice piano gloss finish etc.... (hint hint)

BTW, I will be seeing what the difference is between the Hyper 212+ and the EVO is as compared to the True Spirit 120 pretty soon. I decided to buy an EVO myself for testing it, since Cooler Master doesn't send us heatsinks to test (for whatever reason). I am curious as to the performance gain the EVO design will bring, especially since they closed up the spacing on the heatpipes in the base. It was around $38-39 shipped from the Egg, which wasn't too hard a hit in the wallet. I should be putting the TS120 on the test rig very soon; been writing up another review the last few days instead of testing. After the TS120 I will see about testing the EVO and that way I will know for sure which is the better buy for cooling.

Should an interesting read doc

mjw21a said:

I'd be keen to see pictures of the in progress wood computer case.... You don't see too many of those, especially beautifully executed cases with nice wallnut grain, a nice piano gloss finish etc.... (hint hint)

Click to expand...

Lol. I'll be sure to take a lot of pictures. There are going to be 2 cases in the end. My brother-in-law and I are going to make the first one out of plywood for a test run to see how the parts should fit together and to test the design. The 2nd one will be made of better wood, wallnut does sound nice with the piano finish...

The design I would LIKE to do is to make a wood case with the basic design like the Thermaltake level 10. Power supply in it's own box, Motherboard and video cards in theirs, DVD rom in it's and finally HD's in theirs. Finally connect all box's to a single large pannel on the side where the wires run through. Because it's wood I'll be able to cut holes in the specific parts for proper air flow. Maybe make it like a bookshelf setup? I don't know, having them all in their own box's would make "positioning" more a thing of choice than of need, doesn't need to look like a regular case with the hd's up front and all that.


And I DEFINATLY will wait until I read your review muddocktor, that sounds like it will help me a LOT on this choice.

This cooler is garbage, or at least the mounting brackets and screws are.

They over-engineered the screws that hold the springs, and the threads literally rub off.
I read a lot of articles and it seemed like the most cost effective cooler but I couldn't use it until after I gave up on support and created the screws by myself.