Cooling Solutions for Mobo

[Rafterman]

Way back in the days of the Pentium3 500MHz processors passive cooling was the only cooling around but the advent of active cooling(fans ect) was dawning. Back then ppl poo-pooed passive cooling in favour of active, in fact active cooling became the way to go. However when I did some research recently for cooling solutions for my evga 680i mobo I read a lot of ppl reccommending passive solutions over active. I know there are solutions that incorporate both active and passive but these are not always suitable given space concerns ect. What do you guys think can passive cooling be as good as active.

 

[Skott]

Depends on the mobo/chipset and what you are trying to achieve with it. Some mobos dont need anything and some require only passive cooling and some run so hot they need active cooling. Usually when OCing is involved. Some OCers go so far as to pull off all the sinks and apply AS5, aftermarket coolers, and fans, just to get the temps as low as possible for better OCing temps.

 

[Rafterman]

Well I will be overclocking my new rig. Replacing the stock gunk they use as thermal paste on retail mobos with AS5 sounds like a good idea if slightly overkill but if it helps lower the temps it's worth it. Looking at what is available for my mobo I will probably end up with dual solution(passive+fan) which appears to be standard now.

Cheers.