Conclusion

No wonder that all three coolers we tested today turned out better than the regular boxed solution bundled with Intel CPUs. However, we were very surprised to see that they are only a few degrees better and provide only 50~200MHz of additional CPU speed, which makes around 1.7~6.7% frequency gain for Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 CPU. Not much, actually very little, considering that both TITAN coolers and Thermaltake i1 are practically as noisy as the boxed cooler. The results could be different on a quad-core processor, but as I have already said above, you will hardly go for a budget cooling solution if you own a quad-core CPU.

It is really hard to recommend any particular model in this case as well as advise replacing the reference boxed cooler. However, if you decide to do it, then you should pay special attention to Thermaltake i1, as it is the most efficient solution of the three tested today. Under maximum workload it also turned out the noisiest, but if you don’t load your CPU to the maximum all the time, or if the workload is mostly average, the fan of Thermaltake i1 doesn’t speed up beyond ~1700RPM, which is pretty comfortable for everyday work.

Again, the choice is yours :)