Review on 🔧 Antec A30 CPU Cooler with Blue LED Fan - Intel LGA 775/1150/1151/1155/1156 & AMD Socket FM1/AM3/AM3+/AM2+/AM2 Compatible by Lakeem Pickel

I have an ASUS P8 Z77-V Pro motherboard with an Intel i5-2500k processor (LGA 1155 socket). This machine has served me well for image processing in Photoshop and Lightroom for many years. However, in the last 6 months, when editing images in Lightroom, the CPU ran above 76 °C in the ASUS AI Suite. I did a lot of research and found that I'm not alone in this regard as Lightroom seems to consume a lot of computer resources. The first step was to replace the thermal paste to see if that would solve the problem... It helped. no So the search for the best CPU cooler began. It turns out that most third-party coolers use a backplate behind the motherboard. This would mean disconnecting all components and the motherboard to do these installations. However, the Antec A30 has a system where you do the isolation from above. This allowed me to install this cooler without removing the motherboard. It consists of a set of gaskets and a ring mount that attaches to the top of the motherboard. The new coolant is then held in place by two (2) spring loaded metal hooks. That was the hardest part. There isn't much room to hold hands, so I had to remove one (1) PCIe card from the slot. It took some time to align the hooks with the ring and snap them into place. The spring tension is unusually high so this part took some time to complete. The only other issue was that the power cord is a 3 pin plug while the original was a 4 pin (4). What is required is to align the side slot with the new connector and connect it to the corresponding three (3) pins on the motherboard. Total time from start to finish was approximately one (1) hour. Now my CPU runs at just over 40oC at full load and I like to camp. See the attached screenshot of the latest ASUS Ai package.