Excellent heatsink for any price. The fan is very quiet even at full speed.

I agree, it's the best price/performance on the market for socket 939. Not as pretty as the Zalman but same performance and much lower price. I recommend 100%!!!

I also like this cooler. Very quiet, and it definately keeps the cpu cool. Noticable temperature difference over the stock heatpipe cooler that came with my AMD 64 X2 4400+. If you have a stock amd cooler, this is a great upgrade at a great price. Just make sure it will fit in your case before you get it.

Agree with above. Nice and quite and best performance for price.
Remember to install fan facing front of case blowing to the rear of case across the fins.

is this a newer model?

i bought one about a year ago that had the fan blowing air toward the back panel instead of down onto the cpu.

It never felt like it was doing a better job then a stock cooler


edit.. ok well after looking at the pictures it looks identical to the one i have.. i never liked how the air is not being blown at the cpu

i'd recommend this too, i have the one for the socket 478, its quieter and more efficient tham my old thermaltake setup which costed way more

arctic cooling also makes awesome frameless case fanes, not flashy if u like leds and stuff, but the best for a stealth computer

bought this @ buy.com with lower price..

question, its power plug is four pins.. but my mobo only have 3pin plug.. i plug in where the 'black, red, yellow' wires to the mobo.. it work on the first boot to windows. but when i restart the system, it pops up msg with 'fan fail, system shut down'

anyone experience this problem? is there any way to convert the 4pin to 3pin which my mobo accept. or 4pin to the larger 4pin plug that power supply have?

#5: The heatpipes carry heat from the cpu to the fins, where the fan blows it away. Having the fan blow down onto the cpu doesn't do much of anything, it's the fan blowing on the fins that does the cooling. Just try taking the heatsink off of your cpu and have a powerfull fan blowing directly at it. Well, actually, don't. You would probably end up destroying your cpu. According to reviews of this CPU cooler, it's actually far better at cooling than similarly priced coolers that have the fan blowing down on the cpu. In fact, it's better than quite a few more expensive coolers that have the fan blowing down. Also, this comes with some high-end thermal grease already applied, so you don't have to also buy Arctic silver 5 or anything.

I was confused by the 4-pin connector too, #7. I've never seen a 4-pin connector of that type. I just attached it with the 4th wire (blue, I believe) hanging off the side and haven't had any problems.

Good call on the thermal grease, #8. The stuff that comes pre-applied is very good stuff.

how is that artic silver 5? I got a tube of the for free the other day, but I don't know if it does enough to take the time and install it.

I use a thermal pad now :O

Artic Silver 5 is good stuff, but don't be deluded into thinking that it's some kind of God-send. Might get a degree or two change from applying it.

However, the BEST part about AS5 is that the compound is carefully designed so that it doesn't dry out and harden. Thus, when you remove your heatsink from your CPU in two years, you won't have to crack it off. Also, the performance degrades as the thermal grease hardens. I use AS5 on everything because a small tube is cheap and it just makes life a little easier.

#7 and #9, the 4 pin connectors are standard for Intel motherboards, AMD uses 3-pin connectors.

If you are on a budget, have a baconrunning CPU or have a case that this won't fit in, I bought an Arctic Cooling Alpine 64 for like $9 that is nearly silent and cools my Athlon 64 very well.

baconrunning should be C-o-o-l-e-r running CPU.

Just bought this a week ago. Has kept my idle temp around 32C on an AMD 64 3500+. Playing Q4, UT2K3, and HL2 around 41C. It is much queiter and much more efficient than AMD stock fans.

I have this fan and I was concerned that it would be noisy - the pictures do it no justice, this thing is MASSIVE!

I found that if I loosened the retaininer screws a bit, they go on the motherboard a whole lot easier.

This thing has been on for the past 2 weeks 24x7 - and its very quiet. The only thing making noise now are the 2 videocard fans in SLI config, and boy are those things loud!

Will this work with socket AM2? The stock heat sink for my 5200+ dual core looked just like a socket 939 heatsink.

I'm pretty sure the retention clip is specific to Socket 939.

I think it's compatible with AM2 as well as 939 and others. I bet the Arctic Cooling or NewEgg sites would tell you for sure.

I briefly had one but I couldn't fit it in my little case. I sold it on eBay for a few bucks more than what I paid.

From the Newegg description:

Compatibility: All AMD Sempron, Athlon 64, Athlon 64 X2 Athlon 64 FX (Athlon 64 FX-62 and Athlon 64 X2 5000+) All AMD Opteron

And from one of the Newegg buyer's reviews:

Pros: easy install on m2n sli deluxe good price, quiet, quality design for exhausting warm air out the back of case.

I've read on the web that it is compatible with Socket AM2.

Is there any chance at all that this would fit a Socket A (462)? The retension mechanism looks very similar.