CPU Cooler Charts 2008, Part II - Junk or Jewel?
Table of contents
- 1. The Whole Range - From Bargain Bin Part to Water Cooler
- 2. Nexus PHT-7750 - Loud and Hot
- 3. EKL Frost Tower – Heatpipe and CPU getting cosy
- 4. 3R System Ice Age – A Perfect Mount
- 5. Zalman CNPS8700 NT - How Not to Mount a Cooler
- 6. Cooler Master Hyper TX2 - A very cool Bargain
In the first part of our extensive roundup of CPU coolers we came to the conclusion that 45% of the products we tested either failed our test or weren’t worth their asking price. Additionally, we were surprised by how much junk is sold in hardware stores these days and how badly customers are sometimes deceived. Today we move on to the second part of our cooler charts, testing six more coolers that join the eleven models we reviewed in our last instalment. Our field covers the full range of products, from the inconspicuous and cheap entry level model to the high-end water cooler costing €350. For us, cooling performance alone isn’t everything, though – we also take the products’ noise and ease of installation into consideration. In the first part of this series, five of the review samples didn’t make the grade.
Although we only describe the new additions to the roundup in this part, the charts include all of the coolers tested so far. We will continue this series of articles, creating an overview of a large selection of the coolers available in stores for your reference.
We have either already tested coolers of the following companies or have samples in our lab:
| 3R System | Antazone | Arctic Cooling |
| Asus | Coolermaster | Coolink |
| Cooljag | EKL | Foxconn |
| Gigabyte | Glacialtech | Hiper |
| Joujye Dynatron | MSI | Nexus |
| Noctua | OCZ | Scythe |
| Silentmaxx | Silverstone | Spire |
| Tacens | Thermaltake | Titan |
| Verax | Watercool | Xigmatec |
| Zalman | Zaward | Zerotherm |
If you are interested in our test methodology and how we rate the products, feel free to read up on these points here:
- Hardware,
- CPU-Coolers ,
- Phenom ,
- Core2
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Nice to see the Noctua's still up there!
I'm hoping they'll review the Zalman CNPS9700 and the Tuniq Tower 120 in the part three of this series.
Any chance of including the standard Intel box cooler as a baseline comparison for temperature, noise and installation?
well just look at page 2 that basicly is an Intel cooler
How can the nexus (pg 2) get a 10 for installation as it is the push pin type that accounts for significant numbers of the 'are my temps ok?' posts on the forum, this method whilst simple in principle, i.e. no backplate, no water etc. it causes many problems upon actual real world installations.
it LOOKS a lot like the Intel HSF, but is it the same? I doubt it, but does anyone know? if not, i too would like to see the intel scores.
I'm using the Titan Amanda tec cooler, never gone over 45°C would've been nice to see that up there too.