After reading reviews on the Cooler Master V8, Zalman 9900, Sunbeam, Noctua, TRUE, Xigmatek (both the normal and dark knight version) on frostytech, I am utterly confused. If you look at their charts comparing temperatures and noise levels, I have a feeling that they are omitting certain points of data. The same coolers do not show on each list at the same positions and this makes comparisons very sketchy at best.
If anyone knows of any other reliable sites that can show some charts that are a bit easier to use for comparisons, I'm all ears. I've looked at tomshardware but their review is rather old and doesn't cover some of the newer ones.
All opinions would be appreciated, and here is a list of mine:
Please keep in mind, these opinions are from what I gather from the reviews and not actual experience with them. This is why I'm asking for opinions from people with experience as well.
Cooler Master V8
This thing looks cool but when the fan isn't running at high speeds performance drops more drastically than others.
Zalman 9900
Looks unique, but you can't replace the fan if it breaks. And from what I remember reading, it's somewhat loud for the performance compared to a few others. I've read several reviews on this one as this was the original fan I was going to get. One particular review noticed that this particular heatsink/fan is designed to work WITH the airflow in the case which apparently is not how the typical heatsink/fan review is done. They are typically done just with motherboard out in the open, no case, for simplicity's sake. This causes even more inconsistencies when collecting data about this particular product.
Xigmatek HDT-S1283
This thing seems good but the contact between the heatsink and the cpu got only good ratings. It wasn't as smooth as some of the others and from what I understand, the smoother, the better contacts. The better contacts the better heat dissipation.
The Dark Knight version of the xigmatek is nickel plated. How does this improve or worsen heat transfer? Anyone having issues about the nickel plating peeling off with use?
TRUE
The TRUE is expensive and requires further research on what fan to use. It seems that its performance is dependent solely on the fan that you end up getting to go with it, which opens up a whole new can of beans altogether. Plus, where the heck would you find one of these things anyways? I think microcenter has it which it is selling as the FrozenCPU.com Ultra 120 extreme for 95 bucks and apparently a weak fan (from what I can see from the specs).
The Sunbeam is loud at stock speeds unless you get an optional fan controller. Does a good job cooling apparently, but having to manually control the processor fan speed is a turn off.
The Noctua is relatively quiet and performs well but again, the heatsink part that touches the processor are not as smooth as some of the other options. I'm not exactly sure how much this actually matters.
Is there a consolidated review/comparison chart that takes into consideration noise, performance, and design somewhere?
What are your guys' opinions on what to use? Maybe I'm being just too picky about it.