I'm super out of touch with air coolers so I am looking for a recommendation. Last time I used an air cooler was a Zalman CNPS9500. So for the details... I just got an excellent deal on a Xeon X3460 and MSI P55GD5 combo. So I was planning on taking that CPU and putting it in my EVGA P55 for a little incremental upgrade for myself and then using the MSI and i5 750 I currently have to upgrade my father from his aging Atom system. I would like an air cooler that doesn't interfere with ram or pci-e slots on the MSI and it will be going into an NZXT source 210 so otherwise it can fit some pretty big coolers I suppose if that is what is best. If there is such a thing as a passive cooler that could keep within sane operating temperature that would be ideal. Most of all it needs to be quiet as it will be in a bedroom, deal with a 3.8gHz overclock on the i5 and ideally not cost more than say $40. TLDR, quiet as possible, effective cheap air cooler, fits without slot interference for: i5 750@3.8/MSI P55GD5/NZXT source 210
It probably wasn't the best choice... but I ended up getting an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2. For $9 it won on sheer price.
Hmm. Sorry i didn't spot this earlier, would have suggested the gelid tranquillo. Acf7 is a bit past it nowadays.
I'm sure there are better, but I hope it's at least going to do the job. For the money other choices were things essentially identical to a stock intel cooler. I certainly wouldn't have paid attention to it if it hadn't been on a clearance.
