Which is more important

[sup2jzgte]

I always wondered what is more important to cooling a processor a fancy heat sink or powerful fan?

 

[vroom_skies]

Well it's always a good idea to have an even setup.
So get a nice heat sink, but also have a nice fan to go along with it.
If I had to go "high end" for one and "low end" for the other, I would spend the money on a heat sink.

Bob

 

[Kornowski]

Heat Sink, by far. You can get an awesome passively cooled HS that would perform, as good as, or better than a crappy HS with an awesome fan.

 

[just a noob]

heatsink, there's no point in using a 250cfm 120mm fan, in combination with an intel stock hsf, but even would be best

 

[vinnie107]

Certainly heatsink, even some of the fully passive ones are reasonable.

 

[diduknowthat]

The heatsink is most important. I'm running my Q6600 @ stock with a passive heatsink and it idles at around 35C.

 

[bengal85]

Heatsinks are better for cooling but that doesn't mean that a nice fan would be to much either I mean I would probably put it a good HS and a good fan.

 

[zer0_c00l]

HeatSink

 

[fmw]

The fan cools the heatsink, by the way, not the processor. It is the heatsink that absorbs the heat generated by the processor. The fan just moves it away.