AM1 Aftermarket Coolers

[Dirk Broer]

Model	Height mm	Width mm	Noise dBA	Fan Speed rpm
AMD AM1 Stock cooler	39.4	60	-38.7	-4060
Arctic Alpine M1	41	80	0-20.5	0-750
Arctic Alpine M1 Passive	70	77	0	0
Gelid Slim Silence AM1	26	79	15-27.2	1200-2600
Scythe Kodati Rev.B	34	82.5	8.2-32.5	800-3300

Take these values with a pinch of salt, as these are the manufacturers claims, except for the AMD stock cooler.
In real-life -sorry, in German- the Arctic coolers, though utter to whisper quiet, failed to actually cool as good as the AMD stock cooler, as the guys from www.tech-review.de found:


Noisewise:

[Dirk Broer]

Reeven, a little known company of CPU-coolers, has made two sub-models from their excisting series that will fit on AM1 boards. They already seemed to have one, the Vanxie
The models in question:
Reeven Vanxie RC-0801 (34 mm high, 80 mm fan)
Reeven Brontes RC-1001b (59 mm high, 100 mm fan)
Reeven Steropes RC-1206b (60 mm high, 120 mm fan)

Around here (the Netherlands) Reeven is nowhere to be found however.

[Dirk Broer]

How does it look, the AM1 coolers?

AMD stock cooler:

My personal verdict: An unbeatable price/performance mix

Arctic Alpine M1:

My personal verdict: Not worth the extra money compared to the AMD stock cooler. It sure has the looks, but not the performance. It is quieter though.

Arctic Alpine M1 Passive:

My personal verdict: The cooler to go for in case of a HTPC with a roomy iTX case (or mATX case). Dead silent, but do not tax your system too much, as it is the worst cooling AM1 cooler.

Gelid Slim Silent:

My personal verdict: Not worth the extra money compared to the AMD stock cooler, both temperature and noise-wise. Looks more competent though.

Scythe Kodati Rev.B:

My personal verdict: Not worth the extra money compared to the AMD stock cooler, but one of the few that cools better. Might be quieter in everyday use too but, when pushed to the edge, the noisiest of AM1 coolers except for the AMD stock cooler -which is surprisingly quiet under 24/7 BOINC btw.

[Nflight]

Now since you spoke about a topic I am seriously interested in why not let's expand this thought of noisy pieces of industry and remove the noise but keep the cooling. Are you interested in my thinking ?

[Dirk Broer]

Like this you mean?

Asrock board, featuring a 15 Watt tdp quad AMD A4-5000,
6x USB 2.0, 6x USB 3.0,
D-Sub (VGA), DisplayPort, DVI-D, HDMI,
and.....passive cooling.
Stick it in an Antec ISK 110 vesa (no system fan, external laptop-like power brick), use a SSD and you have utter silence.

[Nflight]

Utter silence yet no viable cruncher would ever purchase such a product for its output would not capture our invigoration. No I am more interested in adapting blade-less fans to push or pull air through a Desktop cruncher; http://www.dyson.com/Fans-and-heaters/cooling-fans.aspx So now utilize those massive electron absorbing and heat gushing circuitry and use these babies in their place! less noise and humming for me its right beside me all the time that i would like to fix.

[Dirk Broer]

You'll never guess what is at the base of a Dyson 'Fan-less' fan: a fan

[Nflight]

Yes I know that but a sealed whirring fan in a case with dampeners is much nicer on the hearing then listening to the rumble I hear everyday I sit at my computer!

The complex idea is to situate one of these and drive the wind through the entire desktop box using just one fan. Thus reducing the whirring noise to almost nil. More pieces to be fitted to each internal realm of desktop computer but in the end less noise. The PS would also be able to have its fan shut off if used in this format for cooling.

Dyson could not make the blade-less fan work to his liking, I am talking about Lifters .

[Dirk Broer]

If you want both silence and performance this is a good choice: Scythe Mugen 4 PCGH Edition
Using two 800 rpm fans it only has a 12.5 dBA noise level

[Dirk Broer]

Utter silence yet no viable cruncher would ever purchase such a product for its output would not capture our invigoration.

Comparable to the A4-5000 on this mobo is the slightly higher rated Socket AM1-based Athlon 5350. Both feature R3 GCN graphics, capable of crunching too. I have a 5350 running to great satisfaction -poor bugger is running 4 normal projects, 4 NCI projects plus a GPU project at the same time- and I am eagerly awaiting the AM1 socket refresh, as promised by AMD.

Six of these A4-5000 based mobo's give you a total tdp of 90 Watt -same amount of tpd as most single Trinities, Richlands, Kaveris and Godavaris and cheaper running FX's-
but with the advantage of 24 cores and 6 -tiny- GPUs running.

Mind your PSUs though: you will need 60 Watt -noiseless- laptop PSUs instead of noisy 300+ watt ATX PSUs!
The SOC -this is no mere APU- already is cooled (some passively, others actively), you'll only need a fanless casing, like the before mentioned Antec ISK 110
(which is delivered with an external noiseless 90 Watt PSU, btw)