What cooling for a htpc build
 

I currently have bought this,
NCIX.com - Buy Arctic Cooling Alpine 64 Pro AM2 AM3 S939 500-2000RPM 36CFM Heatsink Fan - ALPINE64PRO In Canada.

But read some reviews and seen it was barely at par with the AMD stock cooler so I'm a little saddened by that, would you suggest getting this?

http://ncix.com/products/index.php?s...facture=Scythe

What CPU? And overclocking at all?

AMD Phenom II X2 550 Dual Core Processor, just unlocking it if I can. no overclock cause there's no point in a htpc is there?

Then I would just use stock. At stock clocks it should be able to keep it cool and quiet.

Alright, I've already dropped enough cash into this HTPC then I would've liked...bought this just cause I thought it would "look cool" and take some load off the cpu when playing a 20-30gb .mkv file
Newegg.ca - HIS IceQ H567Q1GD Radeon HD 5670 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card w/ Eyefinity

I regret it now but I won't when the sexy beast is playing in my htpc :)

I use this heatsink in my HTPC. It was $20 less when I purchased it though paired with a quality low speed fan for very low noise.

NCIX.com - Buy Scythe Big Shuriken Low Profile CPU Cooler Heatpipe Heatsink LGA1366 1156 775 AM2 AM3 120MM Slim Fan - SCBSK-1000 In Canada.

"Modern" motherboard on board graphics such as those present in the Intel H55 (Paired with the appropriate i3 or i5 processor), AMD 785g, 880G ect make excellent HTPC's without need of external graphics unless you plan on doing some more than casual gaming with your htpc.

Here are my present HTPC specs. I haven't opened the case in over a year & it's been running great!

Asus Motherboard (G41 based I think so external graphics is needed for HTPC)
Intel E5200 CPU @3ghz (I can't help overclocking it's a disease.)
Scythe Big Shuriken Heatsink
2GB DDR2 800Mhz ram
Gigabyte GT 240 1gb PCIe
PC Power & Cooling Silencer 420 ATX Power Supply

My latest HTPC build for a friend uses an i3-530 (Stock Cooling), Gigabyte H55N-USB3 (ITX) motherboard combo with 2GB of ram & the results are excellent running XBMC & Boxee. The system runs very quietly in his Lian Li PC-Q08 case with stock cooling as the processor is never stressed.