Hi
I am buying a new htpc and here are all of the componenets except for the cpu cooler, i am looking for quiet and i am willing to pay for it but i don't want to waste money if something else in the computer is going to be making much more noise. I will appriciate a recommendation from the list bellow.

Intel Core i3-2100 Tray
Intel BLKDH67BLB3 Bearup Lake
G.Skill DDR3 4GB 1333MHz 9-9-9-24 NT
Samsung Spinpoint F4EG 204UI 3.5" 2TB 32MB SATA2
Sapphire Radeon HD6450 Silent LP 1GB GDDR3 PCIe
Samsung SH-S223 x22 SATA Black DVD
Antec NSK2480 Black-Silver 380W

Here are the options with the price (USD)


Arctic Alpine 11 GT Rev.2 15.84

Arctic Alpine 11 Rev.2 17.45

Arctic Freezer 11 LP 22.55

Zalman CNPS7000V-Al 24.97

CoolerMaster Hyper TX3 26.85

Arctic Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2 33.62

Zalman CNPS7000V-AlCu 34.91

Scythe Samurai-ZZ 40

Scythe Shuriken Rev. B 40

Arctic Freezer 13 40.34

Scythe Kozutti 41.62

CoolerMaster Hyper N520 48.87

Arctic Freezer i30 52.36

Scythe Big Shuriken 2 52.99

I'd choose the Arctic Cooling Alpine 11 rev. 2. The 2100 is a very efficient CPU with a TDP of 65 W so it shouldn't dissipate than much heat. I think the Alpine 11 could handle it, especially if you don't push the 2100 to the limit all the time. It's also very quiet, most likely quieter than the PSU.

You don't have lots of room. The whole case is only 5.5 inches high

Scythe Big Shuriken 2 52.99 - this is your safest bet. It fits and is a good performer. You can swap out the 120mm fan if you want to upgrade it.

Zalmans aren't bad if you keep the speed down but they are about 2 generations old.
Zalman CNPS7000V-Al 24.97
Zalman CNPS7000V-AlCu 34.91

If you can by Noctua in Israel, take a look at the NH-L12.

Hi, as you are on a budget I would go with one of the Arctic Cooling options. Personally I'd probably stump up the extra for the heat-pipe equipped Freezer 11 LP.
It will definitely be small enough to fit your case and provide enough cooling. I would expect it the be able to cool the low-heat i3-2100 CPU even at low fan speeds. The fan is PWM, which the motherboard supports, and runs down to 900rpm at idle, which should be very quiet.
I've also used Hyper TX3 to good effect in several PCs, including one i5-2500k which it could cool quietly, even under load. The i3 has less clock speed and only 2 cores not 4...
Come to that the Hyper TX3 could also cool my i7-2600k quietly, as long as it wasn't over-clocked heavily...

I don't believe you need to spend a lot of money on a CPU cooler, modern Intel CPUs are very efficient and you only *need* to spend big money on a heatsink if you want to quietly cool a loaded, over-clocked CPU. Mostly due to the massive bang-for-buck of the Hyper TX3 and Hyper 212.
In fact if the retail box CPU isn't much more expensive you could go for that and use the bundled heatsink. If it isn't quiet enough you could cut the fan off the stock heatsink and replace the fan. This is what I ended up doing for a friend in Antec Micro Fusion, which is similar but smaller case. CPU was Core 2 Due E5200 (IIRC) so low-heat; the stock fan was worm out and awful, the replacement Arctic Cooling F9 PWM fan we used could run ~600rpm dead quiet and cooled the CPU fine even under load with out needing to speed up. I would expect the i3 to behave similarly, Arctic Cooling's F series PWM fans are, in my experience good, the F9 especially so, and can be bought cheaply, try eBay if no retailer has them.

Hope this helps, Seb

Every stock Intel CPU cooler that I have ever had experience with always was way way too loud for my taste. Though admittedly I don't even give them a chance anymore... so if they have improved I wouldn't know it.