The Phenom II series, especially processors with the TDP of 95W, is really power efficient. On the one hand, there is no real need to replace the stock cooler in the typical mode, because it copes with its task at the lowest noise level. On the other hand, you have an opportunity for various experiments with low-noise and even passive cooling. Or you can overclock the system to impressive frequencies, and cooler selection still won't be a headache. However, we've already noted that installing more powerful air coolers (or liquid coolers) in the overclocked mode does not pursue the goal of lowering temperatures to recommended (acceptable) values, for it does not require any drastic measures. It's done to get temperatures below the recommended values. It often helps to expand the overclocking potential significantly -- overclock a Phenom II to 4GHz and higher, for example. But that's another story that has to do with overclocking sports (that has interesting peculiarities, by the way). For example, if you have a powerful cooling system, it makes more sense to buy a top processor from the 900 series with the TDP of 125W instead of a 95W CPU. The former won't be much hotter in practice, but it will better respond to raising voltage above 1.5V -- by improving its overclocking potential.

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