The Whole Range - From Bargain Bin Part to Water Cooler

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Cooler Charts 2008

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:

 

Companies represented in this test
3R SystemAntazoneArctic Cooling
AsusCoolermasterCoolink
CooljagEKLFoxconn
GigabyteGlacialtechHiper
Joujye DynatronMSINexus
NoctuaOCZScythe
SilentmaxxSilverstoneSpire
TacensThermaltakeTitan
VeraxWatercoolXigmatec
ZalmanZawardZerotherm

 
If you are interested in our test methodology and how we rate the products, feel free to read up on these points here:


Talkback

diddly 06/02/2008 05:12
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diddly
Nice to see the Noctua's still up there!
fwibbler 07/02/2008 08:40
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fwibbler
I'm hoping they'll review the Zalman CNPS9700 and the Tuniq Tower 120 in the part three of this series.
tcn 08/02/2008 08:43
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tcn
Any chance of including the standard Intel box cooler as a baseline comparison for temperature, noise and installation?
leexgx 10/02/2008 01:07
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leexgx
well just look at page 2 that basicly is an Intel cooler
13thmonkey 10/02/2008 01:19
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13thmonkey
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.
broken_sticks 11/02/2008 12:56
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broken_sticks
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.
treeface 13/02/2008 08:33
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treeface
I'm using the Titan Amanda tec cooler, never gone over 45°C would've been nice to see that up there too.

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