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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Friday, 26 June 2020 16:15
With some of the higher-end CPUs from both AMD and Intel, all but the largest heatsinks aren’t really the best option to get the most out of your CPU. So unless your case has room for a giant heatsink there is a good chance that you will be looking at water cooling. All in one water coolers are the most popular and Corsair is one of if not the biggest name in that market. I’ve used many of their AIOs including their H100i RGB Platinum SE which has RGB lighting on the pump and in and all-around its fans. The SE is expensive and unless you are into the crazy lighting you might be looking for an option with similar performance and quality but with less lighting. That is where the H100i RGB Pro XT comes in. It is the same pump and radiator design but it uses Corsairs non-RGB ML series fans which should translate into extremely quiet performance without paying for all of the extra lighting. Today I’m going to take a look at the H100i RGB PRO XT and see if that is really the case.
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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Monday, 27 April 2020 20:53
Back in November Corsair launched their QL series of fans and I had the chance to take a look at them. The QL series of fans are similar to Corsairs Light Loop fans, only with almost double the number of LEDs recently got their white version of the same fans and in my experience, a lot of OC components look even better in white so today I’m going to take a look at them. Because I covered them previously and the only thing that has changed is the color of the fan, it will be a much quicker look but I figured some of you might be interested in seeing what the QL120’s look like in white!
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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Wednesday, 19 February 2020 15:42
For years Noctua has been known for their signature tan and brown theme. It made their products easy to spot and that along with their performance really helped promote their brand over the years. When every fan was black, they stuck with their signature look. Back when color LEDs were first added to fans, they were still tan and brown. But as we got close to the RGB era and with aesthetics in every single part of a computer finally growing in importance Noctua has started to crack. They introduced black and grey on grey models. Then after that their Chromax fans which were black as well but didn’t have the cost raising features of the IPPC fans and along with those they even brought out covers for their heatsinks. But with almost every company finally making blacked out coolers, Noctua was long overdue to do the same and they finally did just that a few months ago. I’m excited to finally dig into them and check out the three new heatsinks as well. The new chromax.black line includes the NH-D15, NH-U12S, and NH-L9i that cover a small, medium, and large range.
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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Monday, 25 November 2019 22:04
By now most of you know of the company Be Quiet! and their heatsinks, fans, and power supplies. Early on when they first came to the US market they were involved in our LANs as a sponsor and we have covered a few of their heatsinks in the past. But they have grown in popularity a lot in the heatsink market especially with their all-black styling, quiet fans, and good performance. Especially with a few of their heatsinks in the SFF community and with their high-end heatsinks for those of you dedicated for the best possible cooling performance without the downsides of All in One coolers like pump noise and the potential for leaks. Well I have had their Dark Rock Slim sitting around the office and as I clean things out for the end of the year I didn’t want to miss checking it out. It is designed for those of you who need a thinner cooler for memory, motherboard, and case clearance reasons. Today I’m going check it out and see how it compares to a few other 120mm air coolers.
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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Thursday, 14 November 2019 13:37
At this point, nearly everyone has their own RGB fans on the market but really only a few companies have been innovating at all. Corsair has been at the forefront of that so much so that Corsair and RGB lighting has become a meme sometimes on Reddit. Its okay Corsair, this is a safe space, we can talk about your love for RGB. Specifically, I want to talk a little about their new QL series of RGB fans that is launching today. I’ve had them around the office for a few weeks and I’ve had time to play around with them a little. Corsairs' big change with QL fans is that they have “spectacular lighting from any angle”. With lighting similar to their Light Loop fans, only this time around they doubled up and have lighting on the back as well and the edges have the lighting visible as well.
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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Wednesday, 23 October 2019 15:38
Not long ago AMD pushed their 3950X launch out into November and when they did that they also teased in that same announcement that it will come out with their Threadripper 3 processor family. With that, this isn’t a bad time to revisit the cooling options. Unlike every other consumer CPU, Threadripper is large enough that it actually required all of the heatsink companies to go back and redesign their heatsinks to get full coverage. With that there are a lot fewer options available for Threadripper. But there are two big names that stand out. Cooler Master partnered with AMD and is who designed and sells the Wraith Ripper heatsink which goes in line with the rest of the Wraith air coolers that typically come with AMD CPUs. Then there is Noctua, who went all out with three different models in their Threadripper lineup. Today I am going to check out all four of those coolers and see how they perform to help those of you waiting for the new launch or others who have been snatching up the marked down Threadripper 1 and 2 models.
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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Friday, 18 January 2019 10:01
Like just about every other product on the market, RGB has been popping up in the water cooling market for a while now. It started on Monoblocks and EK even had it on their new Velocity line of water blocks. But their Supremacy water blocks have mostly been lacking with the exception of the Threadripper block. But at CES this year they have introduced their new lineup called the Classic RGB. They characterize it as “minimalistic and clean while maintaining class-leading performance”. That explains the Classic part of the name, but the second half also indicates that the new lineup has also added RGB lighting as well. I’ve actually had most of the components in the office to check out and now that the cat is out of the bag I can share them with everyone. So today I’m going to check them out and do a little testing as well.
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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Thursday, 13 December 2018 12:21
The all in One market for watercoolers has been boring for a while now honestly. Almost every kit on the market is made by Asetek so what sets them apart is sometimes nothing and other times just a small change compared to the rest of the market. So Asus entering the market with more Asetek coolers wasn’t all that exciting at first, until I saw they added an OLED on to the pump. Now right off the bat, let me address the obvious, a screen isn’t going to change performance at all. But I was interested in being able to use it for customization and/or to show important information. Both were interesting when paired with a small form factor LAN PC build where you can’t have an extra monitor and temps can sometimes be an issue. So Asus sent over their Ryuo, one of two of their designs. This one is closer to a normal Asetek design with its round shape but today I’m going to see how it performs in our normal testing then test it out in a SFF build.
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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Wednesday, 05 September 2018 19:51
Okay, I can admit it, I might love Small Form Factor builds a little more than I should. But I have yet to find the perfect setup, the smaller they get the harder it is to pack all of the hardware need into them, especially for a gaming-focused LAN rig. When I did my original SFF Ryzen cooler testing last year I realized some a few hard truths (okay I knew them, but it cemented them). No matter what you do, a larger cooler is going to perform better and if you can wedge water cooling in a SFF build that will work even better. But to get the really small and portable rigs those aren’t an option. For cases like the GEEEK A30 or the In Win Chopin you really only have a few options and even the Wraith Stealth isn’t possible in some cases. So the Cryorig C7 and the Noctua L9 series have been the main options. Noctua has been bringing out new options including an AM4 specific model that I recently reviewed, but Cryorig hasn’t been leaving things alone as well. They have the C7 Cu, Cu is the periodic table symbol for copper. That is because they have taken the already popular and powerful C7 design and made the same cooler out of the much more efficient material. So today I’m going to put it through the same tests as before and see just how well the new cooler performs. You guys ready? Cu after the page break…
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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Wednesday, 27 June 2018 12:58
Last fall I spent weeks testing and retesting a whole collection of ITX focused heatsinks that had AM4 support. At the time the first ITX boards were just coming out and a lot of the coolers didn’t support the new socket and those that did most people didn’t know how they would perform when packing 6 and 8 core CPUs into the form factor. I highly recommend everyone check out the article. Well, not to long after that Noctua introduced two more heatsinks and I’ve been wanting to see how they compare. I finally got around to it and today we are going to check out the NH-L12S and the NH-L9a-AM4.
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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Thursday, 15 March 2018 17:45
Let's be honest, both some of the best heatsinks and fans are Noctua’s, especially when you are looking for low noise output. The problem is they have been very stuck on their brown and tan color scheme. The benefit is that when you see them you know exactly what it is and you know it is a quality product. They ignored the clear and glowing transparent fan fad that came and went but with cases and other hardware sticking with black they resisted changing to it. A few years ago they did bring out their Industrial PPC fans that were black but they were much more expensive and even though they are great fans a lot of people have looked other directions when swapping out their fans. Well a while back Noctua expanded their Chromax lineup with a new line of fans, new cables, and covers for most of their heatsinks that help give people color options for trim and finally fans and coolers that won’t stand out like a sore thumb while still giving people Noctua quality. I’ve had them in the office for a while and as I work on catching up I just recently got a chance to play with them when a build I put together just wasn’t going with the Noctua cooler that I put in it.
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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Monday, 18 September 2017 13:39
My interest in Small Form Factor builds has grown over the years as my office space has slowly filled up and had less space and each time I take a PC to a LAN event. We have built our Lunchbox project builds all the way back to when nothing was available but that isn’t the case anymore. There are countless case options, tiny power supplies, ITX motherboards with full sized features, and even video cards that will fit in tight spaces. Most recently with the AM4/Ryzen introduction, I was extremely excited to finally have the chance to run an ITX build with a proper high-end AMD CPU. Up until recently, you could really only do it with their APUs. Well even months after the Ryzen launch ITX boards were basically not available, but that is all starting to change with boards getting in stock from Gigabyte, Asrock, and Biostar. Well to celebrate that I decided to bring together a collection of at least most (I’m sure someone will contact me asking for X brand) of the ITX sized coolers that currently have AM4 support. A few of the coolers I got in are pushing the limits of ITX. But today I’m going to check each of them out, make sure they fit an AM4 ITX board (and ram), and test each cooler for noise and temperatures using Ryzen CPUs from the R7, R5, and R3 platforms. Hopefully, we will get a better idea of what fits, what doesn’t, what looks amazing, what is quiet, and what will work with each level of performance. It’s a lot to take in so let’s go ahead and get started.
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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Monday, 14 August 2017 10:09
Okay so just about everyone has their own variation on the AIO water cooling kits these days. Most are working with Asetek as well, so most of the designs are about the same. Well Not long ago Fractal joined the fun but they aren’t exactly known to just do what everyone else is doing. Fractal is known for their very specific styling and quiet cases. So when I heard they were bringing out an AIO I was really curious how they would be doing things differently. This past week I dug into the Fractal Celsius S24, today I’m going to talk about it and then see how it performs.
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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Wednesday, 07 June 2017 18:09
It isn’t very often that Noctua brings out new products. They tend to spend a long time developing everything and they won’t bring things out until they are basically perfect. Hell, it’s hard to believe that their IndustrialPPC and Redux fans came out 3 years ago. So the new introductions were focused on expanding their A-series of fans with 200mm, 120mm, and 40mm models. Along with those they also introduced a few new accessories including a small fan controller. With the fans, you may notice that this is actually their first 200mm fans and the 120 and 40mm models expand on both of those already existing areas in their product lineup with new thin 120mm fans and higher pressure 40mm fans. I was sold just with the introduction of the new 120mm 15mm thick slim fans, but I reached out to check out the whole range. So today I’m going to check out the new fans to see what Noctua has going on.
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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Monday, 08 May 2017 21:38
When it comes to water cooling EVGA isn’t exactly new to the scene. While they haven’t been making CPU AIO’s they have been using them with their Hybrid coolers for GPUs and their Hydro water cooled GPUs as well. They have also had heatsinks in the past as well. So it wasn’t a big stretch when they introduced their CLC line of coolers at CES this year. They showed off a big variety of coolers but at launch, they only had a 120mm design and a 280mm design and today I have the CLC 280 with a 280mm radiator in to check out. I’ve been testing it out on our video card testbench and today I’m going to talk a little about the cooler as well as how it performed so check it out.
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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Wednesday, 12 April 2017 07:36
With Ryzen 5 now available, the possibility that people will be running stock coolers has gone up considerably. Because of that, I figured today we could take a quick look at the performance of the new Wraith Spire and Wraith Max coolers. I did the same thing last year when the Wraith Cooler was first introduced. So today won’t be a big article, I’m just going to run through what CPUs they work with, compare the differences, and then see how they perform.
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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Wednesday, 17 August 2016 21:03
Everyone and their mom has at least one all in one water cooling kit in their product lineup these days. But Cooler Master was in it long before that. They have been selling AIO kits from nearly the beginning and while everyone basically repackages the same kits, Cooler Master has sold a wide variety of kits. This also ended up having the somewhat famously battling in court with one of the AIO OEMs due to a few patients. Well, that hasn’t stopped them at all. So recently they sent the MasterLiquid 240 over for me to check out. On top of being yet another product in their lineup with the Master branding, the AIO kit looks to be a little unique from everything else on the market, so today I’m going to check it out and find out how well it performs while we are at it. Enjoy.
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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Friday, 01 April 2016 22:37
Over the past eight years of reviewing, even with all of the different heatsinks and water cooling options we have covered there has been one constant. In nearly every build or test bench if we weren’t going with water cooling Noctua coolers have been at the top of our list. Recently as far as full sized builds go everything that wasn’t a test bench has been water cooled, but the small form factor builds have nearly all been sporting Noctua NH-L9i’s. This has partially been because I like Noctua’s low noise but more than anything the NH-L9i just kept them all cool and took up less space than even a stock cooler. Recently though I have been working on building a new Lunchbox project build, we have been collecting parts and covering them in various reviews. Well when I got everything together the NH-L9i just couldn’t handle the higher heat output that the i7-6700K was putting out. This wasn’t a big shock given the coolers 65 watt cooling rating and the heat issues that same CPU gave us even with a full sized cooler on our test bench. So this gave me the chance to test out the slightly larger NH-L9x65 from Noctua. Today I’m going to talk about how it performed and run through its features. You can also get a sneak peek at our upcoming build!
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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Friday, 11 March 2016 23:41
So you have built your new rig but it feels like it is missing something. Well you might be running the stock cooler or you might even have a decent air cooler installed. They might get the job done but when it comes to putting so much money into your computer it’s hard to know that you spent that much while still skimping on your cooling. You could just throw down and build a full custom water cooling loop, I know I’ve done that on a few of my builds. But things have gotten so much easier with all in one water cooling kits coming out from basically every manufacture. Well in the case of my LAN rig I had installed an AIO water cooler last year but recently is has been driving me crazy with water in the lines. Because of that I reach out to our old friends over at Swiftech about their new H220 X2 AIO kit. The difference between their kits and most other manufactures is they are basically an all in one custom kit that you can expand and upgrade later. The new models add in LED lighting, a visible reservoir, and many more features over past models. So not only does it give me a chance to check out what the new kits are all about, it also helps give the LAN rig an upgrade before I make it out to a few events over the summer.
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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Wednesday, 03 February 2016 02:07
With both AMD and Intel, the stock coolers that they bundle with their CPUs seem like they have been the same forever. There have been changes in the Intel cooler over the years but AMD has stuck with it, mostly because their mounting system has been consistent forever. Well this year at CES AMD announced changes in theirs. They brought their new Wraith cooler to CES and were showing off the performance. Well last week they sent out their new cooler along with the AMD FX 8370 CPU. We have tested the FX 8370 before but it does give me a chance to see how the new cooler performs. So today I’m going to test the new coolers cooling and noise performance as well as the old AMD cooler to see how they compare.
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