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Overclocking On Air: 10 LGA 1156-Compatible Performance Coolers
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Four coolers that stood out today for superiority in various areas are Noctua’s top-cooling NH-D14, Thermalright’s nearly-silent MUX-120, Cooler Master’s superb-value Hyper 212 Plus, and Scythe’s jack-of-all-trades Mugen-2 Rev. B. Yet the one we’d use and the one we’d recommend might be completely different parts.

Even though the cooler cost $10 more, it’s impossible to ignore the six degrees Celsius cooling advantage Scythe’s Mugen-2 Rev. B provided over Cooler Master’s low-cost Hyper 212 Plus. Our biggest reservation in recommending it universally to budget-oriented overclocking enthusiasts is that it’s the second-biggest sink in the comparison. Putting the fan on the front causes it to hang over the memory slots of most motherboards, discouraging builders who prefer high-profile memory cooling..

At over twice the Mugen-2 Rev. B’s price, the Noctua NH-D14 exacerbates the fitment issue by extending even farther over DIMMs. An impressive 42mm of clearance beneath its bottom fins and adjustable fan height allow at least modest clearance for memory heat spreaders, although there still isn’t enough room for high-performance memory cooling. Yet, while the NH-D14’s sheer size will put off many buyers, class-leading performance and the ability to install and remove the sink from inside a traditional case is sure to put it on the wish lists of many extreme-air enthusiasts.

While we don’t want to dismiss the excellent value of Cooler Master’s $30 Hyper 212 Plus, we were even more impressed to see Thermalright’s thinner sink and ultra-quiet fan provide even greater cooling performance. Unfortunately, Thermalright’s better performance comes at a significantly higher price of $50, hurting its standing in our value charts.

The combination of pros and cons leave us with several recommendations, depending on intended use. While Noctua’s customers have probably already committed themselves to purchasing the best-performing CPU air cooler, we’d recommend the cheaper Mugen-2 Rev. B as a better value for nearly any configuration that has the necessary mounting space. Thermalright’s MUX-120, on the other hand, is the best performing solution for builds that have limited mounting space, while Cooler Master’s far cheaper Hyper 212 Plus is worth considering by anyone who requires a similar footprint but can’t live with Thermalright’s higher price.

With our recommendations out of the way, it’s worth noting that while several coolers included manual fan speed controllers, only three supported  pulse-width modulation (PWM) fan speed control. Of those, Scythe’s Mugen-2 Rev. B was the only one to make its way into our recommendations. We see many of our readers express frustration over their motherboards' “inability” to control fan speed automatically, but many of those boards rely on PWM control exclusively. While some motherboards also provide for fan-speed control via automatic voltage changes, PWM fans work with either type of speed control. Automatic speed control is a far more valuable feature to us than any included potentiometer, because we prefer our systems to be nearly silent under low load. Thus, while we’ve ignored the feature in our performance analysis, this editor has taken the initiative to replace the fan of his own MUX-120 test cooler with a PWM-based unit.

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  • 1 Hide
    mi1ez , 27 January 2010 15:05
    Is the Titan Fenrir unavailable in the US, or is it just ignored...
  • 0 Hide
    jimishtar , 27 January 2010 20:50
    i have the mugen 2 coolin my q9400 @ 3,2 GHz at auto voltage. temps are ~40 idle, ~62 load, but watch out - its PASSIVE, honey ! no fans on it, its sheer size is taking all the heat away, although the case is HAF 932.
  • 0 Hide
    redkachina , 28 January 2010 03:20
    Sunbeam core contact freezer includes 1156 bracket? I've been trying to find those adapter for some time-even tried emailing Sunbeam's tech support.. and now it showed up in Tom's.. anyone have any links of online retailers selling em'??
  • 1 Hide
    Silvune , 28 January 2010 03:24
    Very useful article.
  • 0 Hide
    frankgl , 28 January 2010 16:04
    I use a Cooler Master Hyper TX3, which keeps my CoreI5 750 at 29-32 degrees C. It is not overclocked, but it certainly leaves a lot of room with temps that low.
  • 0 Hide
    brianthesnail , 28 January 2010 17:42
    great review...i have the freezer 7 pro(lga775) cooling my pentium D 915( oc to 3.2ghz) and it does a sterling job keeping the cpu,s idle temp at just 29°C...rising to 47°C(max)at full load..
    i was looking at the corsair H50 however why fix it when its not broken....
    that said i would choose the Scythe Mugen-2 if i had to replace the freezer 7 pro.....
    good article !
  • 0 Hide
    Anonymous , 29 January 2010 00:15
    Since I hear nothing but good things about the Titan Fenrir I am a little disappointed to not see it in this test...
  • 0 Hide
    Anonymous , 31 January 2010 11:47
    why dont they have the prolimatech mega shadow in there?

    i5 750 @ 3.6ghz @ 26 degrees in my pc best cooler available imo for 1156
  • 1 Hide
    abhi_jollyguy , 1 February 2010 19:23
    Well, It's a very nice review. As we all knows that Noctua NH-D14 beats Prolimatech Megahalem by near about 2-4 degree C so may be that is why they have not included Megahalem in this test but overall a very nice review and from this review I have decided to buy Scythe Mugen 2 Revision B.
  • 0 Hide
    thelivingflesh , 17 February 2010 03:31
    the freezer 7 looks neat with the white fan specially if you have the accellero xxx edition of inno3d graphic cards!
  • 0 Hide
    bateman82 , 11 May 2010 01:15
    I have bought this one and are getting it tomorrow. Will be interesting to see the temp after installing Scythe mugen because now I have a some piece of shit to cooler and fan that keeps my 2,8 ghz processor at a 80 temp when full process and around 60~ in idle.. Plus it sounds like an airplane when the fan is on :p  So this will be interesting and appreciated with a new cooler. Nice review!
  • 0 Hide
    olivierhacking , 26 October 2010 00:06
    im not sure if I should get the hyper 212 plus or scythe mugen 2 rev b. the scythe costs me 50 euro and the hyper 212 plus just 30 euro. Is the scythe worth the almost double price? I am planning to overclock my i7 860 to 3.8ghz. And I am fine with cpu temperatures which are not above 70 C
  • 0 Hide
    Anonymous , 16 January 2011 13:53
    great review, thanks. which PWM fan did you use to replace the thermalright one?
  • 0 Hide
    niko935 , 29 July 2011 18:58
    noctua is one best cooler
    watch my noctua
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlillcv4W6w