We have told you many times that the heatsink included by AMD and Intel with many of its processors, it is generally quite inefficient and even underpowered, depending on CPU consumption. This forces us to buy a radiatorbut of course, if you have spent a lot of money for the rest of the equipment, surely you prefer a cheap one even if it is not so good… in this article we are going to recommend you this cheap and powerful heat sink you should buy according to your CPU consumption.
You already know that it is necessary to have at least a decent heatsink to keep the processor at a good temperature, reduce system noise and avoid possible problems. If you need to buy a heatsink for your PC but want it to be good and cheap, you have come to the right place, keep reading because we are going to give you our recommendations in this regard.
As you’ll see below, we’ve divided our recommendations into sections based on your CPU consumption, because it’s not the same thing to cool a low performing CPU as a high end one. That said, here we are.
Cheap heatsink for low power CPU (45W or less)
If you have a low power processor (we consider low power if its TDP is 45W or less), the heatsink that Intel and AMD include with their processors may suffice. Overall, if you want to improve your PC’s temperature and noise, a cheap heatsink will be a better option than the one they give you for free.
For this type of situation, we opted for the Cooler Master Hyper TX3 EVO, a tower-type heatsink with three copper heat pipes that guarantees good temperature for Intel Core i3 or AMD Ryzen 3 processors, regardless of the model. Despite its tower type format, it is a small heatsink because its fan is 92mm, but it only emits 17 dBA in operation and this means an excellent level of silence. In addition, it is a fairly cheap radiator since it costs barely 20 dollars.
If your processor is mid-range (95W or less)
We move on to the mid-range, which includes Intel Core i5/i7 and AMD Ryzen 5 processors with a TDP of up to 95 watts maximum. We already have really very powerful processors in our hands in many cases and therefore need more advanced heat dissipation measures… these are the processors, in fact, in which the original heat sinks that are included are already completely insufficient.
As we are looking for cheap heatsinks, we are not going to recommend an AIO liquid cooling kit, that’s why many users who have this type of processor choose, so our choice is a Arctic Freezer 50a tower-style heatsink with dual fans and includes thermal paste even so you don’t have to worry about a thing.
We have already been able to test this heatsink by ourselves and we have been able to verify that it is really very efficient in terms of heat dissipation, so we are sure that you will not have any more temperature problems with a 95W processor or less. Additionally, for those with a gaming PC, this heatsink includes RGB lighting.
Don’t Buy a Cheap High End CPU Cooler (+95W)
We are now entering the Intel Core i7/i9 and AMD Ryzen 7/9 ranges, processors with high energy consumption and for which we advise you not to skimp when buying a heatsink, otherwise you will have major power problems. temperature, noise and even performance. (Thermal throttling, you know). For this reason, and again without getting into AIO liquid cooling systems, we’re going to recommend a heatsink that can handle virtually any processor, regardless of power consumption.
Our recommendation for this type of processor is a Be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4, a dual-tower, dual-fan heatsink that’s proven to be one of the best on the market in terms of performance and noise. Admittedly, it doesn’t quite reach the level of the Noctua NH-D15, but it’s also a lot cheaper.
Anyway, these are our personal recommendations, and logically there are plenty of other cheap and powerful heatsinks out there that will serve the end purpose, which is to keep the CPU running at a good operating temperature.
