Hi, posted this elsewhere as well but wanted a broad opinion range.
In the past, I bought an AXP-100 Muscle and used it. It's a damn awkward cooler, but it cooled an overclocked (4.5) G3258 well for a side spare build and worked just fine for what it was, temps were good too, nothing to be concerned about during gaming.
However, I am switching that box to a 24/7 Linux machine that will be running a bot, and have also moved the build into a Silverstone ML05 case (I considered the ML09 but I really, really hate piano black glossy finishes and the front of the thing is all I will see. Plus, I didn't really consider going smaller than 7L as I simply do not trust those falsely specced super small PSUs when we go smaller). This gives me 70mm of room to play with for the height now, and I thought hey I can just throw a 120mm fan onto the heatsink and have it be even quieter (it will be in the bedroom thus silence is the most important thing now).
Well, of course, it was never that easy, as the muscle doesn't come with the enhanced fan bracket, so I'm SOL there. So I've started looking into other coolers instead. I do hate how the 100 always ends up bashing into something, currently, the best I can do is have it bash into the USB 3.0 cable slightly. It's just a damn awkward cooler and isn't exactly 'silent' either, with no option to replace the fan.
I'll likely run the CPU at stock now as there's no need for that kind of performance in regular applications, especially in Linux. With all of that considered, would the L9x65 be the best choice considering how silent it is, or should I go for something else? My initial thought was going for one with a large heatsink like the Shuriken and then slapping a thicker 120mm fan on it (have spare Noctuas) and then just running it at extremely low RPMs, but now I'm not so sure anymore since it seems all the large top heatsinks all have damn fitting issues just like the AXP-100. Of course, I also came across the Samuel 17 as well which is cheaper than the l9x65 in the UK (35 vs 44) and looks pretty good as well considering I can slap on a 120 or even 140mm fan onto it that I've got spare, meaning I could run it at extremely low RPMs - could the L9x65 even compete with its slim 90mm fan in that scenario? Most of the common options such as the L9i, AR06, and the L9x65 all use 90mm fans so I doubt they'd be as quiet as I'd like given they won't be able to run at very low RPMs.
Most people seem to default to coolers like the L9, and the Samuel seems pretty unknown, so I was interested in how it got such a good write-up here as well.
In the past, I bought an AXP-100 Muscle and used it. It's a damn awkward cooler, but it cooled an overclocked (4.5) G3258 well for a side spare build and worked just fine for what it was, temps were good too, nothing to be concerned about during gaming.
However, I am switching that box to a 24/7 Linux machine that will be running a bot, and have also moved the build into a Silverstone ML05 case (I considered the ML09 but I really, really hate piano black glossy finishes and the front of the thing is all I will see. Plus, I didn't really consider going smaller than 7L as I simply do not trust those falsely specced super small PSUs when we go smaller). This gives me 70mm of room to play with for the height now, and I thought hey I can just throw a 120mm fan onto the heatsink and have it be even quieter (it will be in the bedroom thus silence is the most important thing now).
Well, of course, it was never that easy, as the muscle doesn't come with the enhanced fan bracket, so I'm SOL there. So I've started looking into other coolers instead. I do hate how the 100 always ends up bashing into something, currently, the best I can do is have it bash into the USB 3.0 cable slightly. It's just a damn awkward cooler and isn't exactly 'silent' either, with no option to replace the fan.
I'll likely run the CPU at stock now as there's no need for that kind of performance in regular applications, especially in Linux. With all of that considered, would the L9x65 be the best choice considering how silent it is, or should I go for something else? My initial thought was going for one with a large heatsink like the Shuriken and then slapping a thicker 120mm fan on it (have spare Noctuas) and then just running it at extremely low RPMs, but now I'm not so sure anymore since it seems all the large top heatsinks all have damn fitting issues just like the AXP-100. Of course, I also came across the Samuel 17 as well which is cheaper than the l9x65 in the UK (35 vs 44) and looks pretty good as well considering I can slap on a 120 or even 140mm fan onto it that I've got spare, meaning I could run it at extremely low RPMs - could the L9x65 even compete with its slim 90mm fan in that scenario? Most of the common options such as the L9i, AR06, and the L9x65 all use 90mm fans so I doubt they'd be as quiet as I'd like given they won't be able to run at very low RPMs.
Most people seem to default to coolers like the L9, and the Samuel seems pretty unknown, so I was interested in how it got such a good write-up here as well.