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Because aftermarket CPU coolers perform better than the shitty stock one. Simple as that. If you're talking about overclocking, that's an important consideration.
Desktop Computers
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Lanx
<Prior Amod>
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If you've built pcs for 20ish years, you'll remember how shitty stock heatsink/fans are. Heck I still remember P4's were overheating b/c the stock HS/Fan was just cruddy. They are literally the cheapest HS/Fans you can have, usually a hunk of aluminum, with some finds and a dank ass 40x40 fan.
By now they're probably at least doing a copper bottom with 70x70 fan. It will retail tons of heat and sound really loud as shit, it's not meant to perform well, it's meant to just work, and they make it as cheap as possible, b/c some idiots refuse to spend a few bucks more for a better hs/fan.
But you're paying top dollar 200 to 600bucks for a cpu, why would you trust a $3 HS/Fan to keep it cool?
Your most basic CM 212 is 20ish bucks, nice big heatsink with direct contact copper heatpipes, powered by a big ass 120mm fan, that you can choose to swap out if you want.
This fan from 2012 is like the foundation on which system builders will trust to keep cool of their cpus.
You have zero issues now, b/c you're not overclocking, you're not aggressive, but you can bet your CPU's lifespan is shortened everyday you use a stock fan b/c it will retain a higher temp than if you dump on an aftermarket fan.
Rezz
Mr. Poopybutthole
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Eh, going to go ahead and call that kind of dumb. CPUs last a fairly long time; intel is not packing their CPUs with inferior quality gear in this day and age to artificially increase their sales. I've had an i5 2550k with a stock cooler for half a decade, and it has had absolutely zero issues. If you follow the trend of upgrading every 2 years or so, your CPU isn't even coming close to it's lifecycle date even with a stock fan. By the time you hit 4-6 years, you are almost always looking at upgrading the CPU "because."
The days of overclocking to squeeze out performance are pretty much a decade ago. The only time you need those extra cycles are if you are doing high end graphics rendering/video editing, which means you are doing jobs that pay a shitload more than needing to worry about your $175 dollar CPU shitting out 2 years early.
Stock fans have been fine for years if you aren't overclocking, and there hasn't been a need for overclocking in quite awhile. Dropping $75+ like some kids do is just dropping money for the sake of dropping money. When you upgrade in sub 5 years, you haven't even come close to the burnout dates for your CPU, stock fan or not.
The days of overclocking to squeeze out performance are pretty much a decade ago. The only time you need those extra cycles are if you are doing high end graphics rendering/video editing, which means you are doing jobs that pay a shitload more than needing to worry about your $175 dollar CPU shitting out 2 years early.
Stock fans have been fine for years if you aren't overclocking, and there hasn't been a need for overclocking in quite awhile. Dropping $75+ like some kids do is just dropping money for the sake of dropping money. When you upgrade in sub 5 years, you haven't even come close to the burnout dates for your CPU, stock fan or not.
Joeboo
Molten Core Raider
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Most people don't upgrade their CPU/mobo every 2 years anymore. The video card, sure, but not CPU. Most people keep their CPUs 5+ years. Even still, much more often than not the stock cooler would probably be fine for 5 years, but a hotter CPU has an effect on every component inside your case. Why not spend 20 bucks to keep your CPU and your case cooler? 20 bucks is nothing in a $1000+ budget, there's no reason not to get one.
popsicledeath
Potato del Grande
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There are plenty of situations where the stock cooler is perfectly fine. Much of the popularity of aftermarket coolers is just perception. Just like people spend more for ram with fancy heat spreaders when 99% of the time those heat spreaders do nothing. I personally bought an aftermarket CPU cooler because of sound, not heat. I prefer a closed loop radiator providing constant low level noise because it's less annoying to me than what often ends up being higher pitched and/or louder noise or yo-yoing from a smaller stock heat sink fan.
popsicledeath
Potato del Grande
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The heat has to go somewhere. Whether it's on the CPU or being dissipated, an aftermarket cooler isn't defying he laws of thermodynamics and making heat disappear into a black hole. There are plenty coolers that will keep your CPU cooler, but your case hotter. Another reason I like radiator systems, the heat still exists, but is being expelled from the case, not into it. But, yeah, overall air flow and case fans are what keep a system cool and what will help preserve every component. Case fans and good airflow are often overlooked by people thinking they bought an expensive CPU cooler so have solved their temp problems.
Mist
Eeyore Enthusiast
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What people fuck up the most is positive pressure vs negative pressure for case airflow setups.
Joeboo
Molten Core Raider
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I have friends that do the "I'll just leave all the sides off of my case for the best airflow!" routine, and I can't convince them for the life of me how that is a terrible idea(assuming you have any case fans at all)
Joeboo
Molten Core Raider
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$270 for a 970 + the new Tom Clancy game
PNY GeForce GTX 970 4GB Rev 2 - $270 AR w/ Tom Clancy's The Division - Slickdeals.net
Good deal, if you don't want the game you can probably sell off the CD key for $30 or something.
PNY GeForce GTX 970 4GB Rev 2 - $270 AR w/ Tom Clancy's The Division - Slickdeals.net
Good deal, if you don't want the game you can probably sell off the CD key for $30 or something.
Rezz
Mr. Poopybutthole
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Yeah that's always a fun variable to deal with. Or when people tie up all their spare PSU wires directly in front of the outtake grill, or set their PC with a floor intake on carpet.
So looking to rebuild my PC. Current one is still working pretty well. Had it for a little over 4 years now with no upgrades.
Gonna be using my old case, fans, hard drives. Everything else will be new. So the board, cpu, graphics card, power supply. Maybe a cooler for the CPU but I'd like to keep it if possible. Currently running DDR3 Ram. Would like to keep it if possible but an upgrade to DDR4 wouldn't kill me.
So basically I have $700-$800 to spend and know little about actual specs or performance of parts. I know I have had my current PC for a little over 4 years and does alright. Just time for an upgrade. I mainly use it for my mmo's and some downloading and streaming.
I don't need to play any game on ultra graphics. As little lag as possible would be nice. The main selling point for me is a balance between performance and longevity.
Like I said before, I want it to last at least as long as the current one. At least another 4 years.
Current pieces I want to replace
Case I will be re-using -AZZA Hurrican 2000/2000R
Video - AMD Radeon HD 6750 1GB GDDR5 16X PCIe
CPU - AMD FX-4100 3.60 GHz Quad-Core AM3+ CPU 4MB L2 Cache & Turbo Core Technology
Motherboard - [CrossFireX] GigaByte GA-970A-D3 AMD 970 Socket AM3+ ATX Mainboard w/ On/Off Charge, 7.1 Audio, GbLAN, USB3.0, SATA-III RAID, 2 Gen2 PCIe X16, 3 PCIe X1 & 2 PCI
Power Supply - 700 Watts - XtremeGear SLI/CrossFireX Ready Power Supply
So reiterating, I use my PC for WoW, SWTOR, a few other smaller games, some downloading and some streaming.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Gonna be using my old case, fans, hard drives. Everything else will be new. So the board, cpu, graphics card, power supply. Maybe a cooler for the CPU but I'd like to keep it if possible. Currently running DDR3 Ram. Would like to keep it if possible but an upgrade to DDR4 wouldn't kill me.
So basically I have $700-$800 to spend and know little about actual specs or performance of parts. I know I have had my current PC for a little over 4 years and does alright. Just time for an upgrade. I mainly use it for my mmo's and some downloading and streaming.
I don't need to play any game on ultra graphics. As little lag as possible would be nice. The main selling point for me is a balance between performance and longevity.
Like I said before, I want it to last at least as long as the current one. At least another 4 years.
Current pieces I want to replace
Case I will be re-using -AZZA Hurrican 2000/2000R
Video - AMD Radeon HD 6750 1GB GDDR5 16X PCIe
CPU - AMD FX-4100 3.60 GHz Quad-Core AM3+ CPU 4MB L2 Cache & Turbo Core Technology
Motherboard - [CrossFireX] GigaByte GA-970A-D3 AMD 970 Socket AM3+ ATX Mainboard w/ On/Off Charge, 7.1 Audio, GbLAN, USB3.0, SATA-III RAID, 2 Gen2 PCIe X16, 3 PCIe X1 & 2 PCI
Power Supply - 700 Watts - XtremeGear SLI/CrossFireX Ready Power Supply
So reiterating, I use my PC for WoW, SWTOR, a few other smaller games, some downloading and some streaming.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Denamian
Night Janitor
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Something like the build joeboo posted recently would do pretty well. It's a little above your budget without the SSD, but it's a very solid starting point. A bit of deal hunting should bring it in to your price range.
I already have a couple SSD drives so that piece could just be eliminated. Much obliged for the reply. I'll check it over.
jeydax
Death and Taxes
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Yeahhh....
We're talking about a $20-$30 cooler that:
1) Is needed with Skylake since no cooler comes with it and Haswell/Broadwell are notoriously hot as hell from the shitty paste Intel used in the CPU itself which is why a lot of extreme overclockers delid their CPU's
2) Drops your temperatures 20C at stock clocks at load (14C at idle)
3) Is much quieter than stock
4) In most situations, the cooler can be used in the next build
popsicledeath
Potato del Grande
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Wait, so people went and hooked up stock coolers that aren't shipping with the K series chips to compare how the stock coolers that aren't included would compare to after market coolers you have to purchase anyhow since a stock cooler isn't included?
And thermal paste has shit-all to do with the cooler; either way it should be replaced in my experience.
The poor connection, not the paste, is why people delid. The shitty thermal paste is why people replace the thermal paste.
In plenty of situations the stock coolers can be reused. My Haswell stock cooler has the copper base that doesn't come with the newish I-3's but is perfect for those.
I mostly agree, but making an aftermarket cooler sound like a critical upgrade for most users is a tiny bit of hyperbole. If people are going to get an aftermarket cooler they should do it for more reasons that omg stock cooler sux which isn't exactly the case in all situations. Best reason to get one is if you're buying to K series you'll have to!
And thermal paste has shit-all to do with the cooler; either way it should be replaced in my experience.
The poor connection, not the paste, is why people delid. The shitty thermal paste is why people replace the thermal paste.
In plenty of situations the stock coolers can be reused. My Haswell stock cooler has the copper base that doesn't come with the newish I-3's but is perfect for those.
I mostly agree, but making an aftermarket cooler sound like a critical upgrade for most users is a tiny bit of hyperbole. If people are going to get an aftermarket cooler they should do it for more reasons that omg stock cooler sux which isn't exactly the case in all situations. Best reason to get one is if you're buying to K series you'll have to!
popsicledeath
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I was assuming by 'extreme overclocker' he was talking about people who delid and don't relid, an most extreme overclockers would do anything to eke out more performance and still doesn't really apply to aftermarket cooler market for the average user or even most people who overclock who aren't delidding. Most people who do delid, though, it's just called replacing shitty thermal paste, which isn't exactly like totally extreme. And no, the reason some random dude in this thread thinking about kinda OCing sometime maybe doesn't really need to be concerned with getting an aftermarket cooler for the same reasons extreme overclockers delid. That's like saying you should by the sport tires for your civic because there are extreme streetracerfags whose civics have 400hp. He should probably get an aftermarket CPU cooler because the processor recommended doesn't come with one. And that's about the end of the relevant list I'd say.
The aftermarket cooler trend is big because hype has made it big, not because everyone's systems were melting down without them. The fraction of people who actually buy an overclockable CPU, then overclock it, and then push their system, and then use that system for many years, are definitely going to benefit from aftermarket cooling. And others who have reasons other than fear or bragging rights. Getting a big, shiny thing you get to install that is very visible in your windowed case that you believe will add huge performance gains is exciting stuff to many builders. So is selecting some awesome, jagged RAM with the best heat spreaders around!
I think people should often get an aftermarket CPU cooler. I just think they should do it for better reasons than a list of implications that probably wouldn't apply to them or they wouldn't have to be asking whether they should get one. Like their processor not coming with one.
All the cool kids know undervolting is where it's at anyhow. OCing is so passe.
The aftermarket cooler trend is big because hype has made it big, not because everyone's systems were melting down without them. The fraction of people who actually buy an overclockable CPU, then overclock it, and then push their system, and then use that system for many years, are definitely going to benefit from aftermarket cooling. And others who have reasons other than fear or bragging rights. Getting a big, shiny thing you get to install that is very visible in your windowed case that you believe will add huge performance gains is exciting stuff to many builders. So is selecting some awesome, jagged RAM with the best heat spreaders around!
I think people should often get an aftermarket CPU cooler. I just think they should do it for better reasons than a list of implications that probably wouldn't apply to them or they wouldn't have to be asking whether they should get one. Like their processor not coming with one.
All the cool kids know undervolting is where it's at anyhow. OCing is so passe.
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popsicledeath
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