Although the mounting instructions are not that great at first glance
How is the instruction?
My old CPU cooler fan was on it's last leg and the whole thing was really caked up with dust, and this is a nice replacement. This is smaller and cools better, probably because it uses copper pipes instead of aluminum like the previous cooler. Fan noise is average, no different than the old fan. I have a big tower case so there is plenty of room for a large cooler like this. With a smaller more compact case you may want to check your clearance first. On the box it says it's 158.5mm tall, 120.0mm wide, 77.0mm deep.I like that the fan easily separates from the fins for cleaning, unlike my old cooler. It just clips on the side using no screws. Big plus for that design. You can put the fan on either side, but you want the air to flow in the same direction as your case fans.Comes with a variety of mounting hardware for different Intel and AMD CPUs. You can also position it to blow vertically or horizontally, depending on which way you want the air to flow. Although the mounting instructions are not that great at first glance, it did not take long to figure out what parts to use and how to use them. If this is your first time mounting a cooler, you don't need/want to overtighten the screws. Just snug will do nicely. You don't want to crack your motherboard and/or damage the internal wiring running by the screw holes. This isn't your car you are working on.I used Arctic Silver 5 instead of the included thermal paste. Go to Arctic's website for the correct way to apply it as it's different for each cpu type. My i7-920 is quad core so it calls for a side-to-side bead instead of a pea-sized drop in the middle. There are how-to videos and pics out there if this is your first time.SpeedFan 4.49 says my idle temp is 35C, and while running Prime95 it goes no higher than 61C. Intel says the absolute max i7 temp is 100C, which if ever reached, the software should shut everything down to protect the chip. Btw, they say it helps to 'burn in' the thermal paste by running Prime95 or whatever, as repeated heating and cooling actually makes the paste work better, but if you don't overclock then that's not really needed.I wanted to move to water cooling but read how some have leaked and the liquid destroyed very expensive video cards (seems they are always mounted below the cpu on a vertical motherboard). I have not heard if the cooler's manufacturers offer any kind of reimbursement for the damage, but who wants the hassle? I'm guessing the only way to avoid that is to lay the desktop on it's side where everything is hanging upside down from the motherboard. I'd rather have my tower case upright so I guess I'll stick to fans. 