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The Mugen 2 outperforms the Dark Knight for around the same price. The Dark Knight really doesn't offer much in terms of added cooling efficiency above the HDT1283, so you might as well save a little money and get the 1283 that if you're going with Xigmatek. I don't know why everyone on this forum is so obsessed with it.

The 1283 is great for $25 with the rebate (I have one cooling a Q6700), but that's about as far as I'd go with Xigmatek coolers.

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apt2vanish

What? The Dark knight is a good cooler at stock, but a great cooler if you lap it to copper, and switch the fan with a 100cfm or better.

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We Are Gr33n Machine

PhenomII x4 955BE 3.914Ghz@1.536
E8500 Wolfdale 4.284GHz@1.392v

Simca

Wow, everyone! Thanks for all these replies and sooooooo fast. I really can't express how happy I am with the quality of the replies and the speed. The other forums I've tried reply like twice a day with poor quality replies.

Glad to be part of this forum

Here's a scoop on what went down.

I spent like 1 hours (seriously) reapplying the thermal paste. I kept scraping it and scraping it to perfection with a plastic card. (That card has so much silver on it now it's probably worth a couple dollars).

I slid the chip back in and this time I flipped the cooler around. I think I had the cooler facing the wrong direction this whole time. The fan was next to the rear fan, but now I placed it so that the fan was on the other side. I saw a picture seeing the air flow blow into the metal and the hot air blow out the other side of the metal. That said when the hot air comes out of the metal stackings, it'll move right into the rear fan and out the back (so I hope).

Upon starting up my comp, I had temperatures of 33C!!

Since then (it's been about 20 minutes now) my temperatures are at 38C (with the cores surprisingly cooler than the CPU at 37).

I put sooooooooooo much time into redoing the thermal paste. I also think I faced the cooler the right way this time.

Now I'm gonna' check the cooler's you guys have mentioned and see what's best for me.

Thanks again for all the great advice on coolers.

Drin

Glad to hear it worked out

Good luck once again if you decide to make a purchase, and here's hoping you get a great OC!

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sLowEnd

Mugen 2 is still better after said mods are done

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warcloudff

You are probably using a raidmax mid tower case which comes with 120mm rear, 1>80 side, 1>80 front... you don't have enough air flow.. you need to replace your front and rear fans with better 120mm fans that can move a lot of air. that should drop most of your temps.

Cause I have that case and as soon as I replace the those 2 fans with antec tricools 120's and my temps dropped a lot. By almost 10+.

My rig might be a dual core 5400+ clocked at 2.8.. but my to was getting over 50+ and stuff now its a lot better. Hope this helps.

Simca

I was beginning to think that the stock fans on the case weren't good enough. I'm not sure I can put a 120 mm fan on the front..it's 80mm naturally.. In fact if I could replace a fan it'd be the side fan that's 80mm. Not sure what the CFM is for the 120mm fan, but I'll definitely look into it, thanks alot for the reply.

Simca

Hmmmmm..IMO the TRUE and Megahalem are out for me..simply because they seem a little too complex..I'm not sure how I'd go about installing a fan on them etc.. I think the way to go is either Dark Knight or Mugen-2. While everyone seems to love the Dark Knight, the Mugen-2 seems to be the better performer..if it only requires me taking out the motherboard(which is really really annoying actually..) then I'd be willing to sacrifice the inconvenience in order to get the better performance (assuming Mugen-2 gives me significant cooling difference compared to the Dark Knight?).

But according to the specs I don't really understand how the Mugen-2 outperforms the Dark Knight since the Dark Knight has higher CFM and the fan spins at higher RPM.

redalert

could get some OCZ Freeze if newegg has it in stock or a better fan like a Panaflo which Newegg sells and its a 120x38 with better static pressue than a 120x25 fan

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test tube

A nice high speed fan... The fan it comes with isn't bad (I still have the original Slipstream that came with the Mugen I running fine) but there are better options, I'd recommend the Silverstone FM121/FM122-B, Scythe S-Flex SFF21G or Panaflo FBA12G12M-1BX (which are all fairly quiet while still being high performance and long-lived). Good fans are expensive (~$15-$20) but you get what you pay for.

edit: And IC-7 Diamond for paste, but if you can get OCZ Freeze easier that works fine too, Diamond dropped my temps a few degrees lower than Freeze.

The Mugen 2 outperforms the DK by having a better design (the openings in the middle allow for much better airflow along the heatpipes). The DK is pretty much an anodized 1283 while the Mugen 2 is a complete overhaul of the previous Mugen. Scythe went through many different designs before finalizing the Mugen 2.

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