Testing

As with our other CPU cooling reviews, I’ll follow the usual testing method:

Record the ambient temperature
Let the PC idle for 30 minutes and record the average temperature
Power up StressPrime on both cores with Folding@home running for 30 minutes
Record the average temperature
As this cooler has a variable speed control, I’ll test at maximum and minimum speeds.

Once the cooler was turned on, the 110mm fan lit up blue thanks to the LED’s built into the fan. The variable speed control doesn’t affect how bright the LED’s are so you won’t have a dimmed fan if you choose to run at a lower RPM.

At low speed, the fan doesn’t make a great deal of noise and is pretty silent. It’s not perfect as there are no vibration dampening mounts present, so the main cause of noise is the fan rumbling in the case. The delicate blades show a major flaw. Due to the turbulence that the air creates around them, at high speeds they shake and rattle which creates a tinny knocking sound which gets quite annoying after a while. The rumbling from the fan vibration also gets worse when the fan is cranked up a notch.

As the fins are easily bent, they can come into contact with the fan itself and make a horrible grinding sound. If you treat the cooler with care this shouldn’t happen though.

While I may be labouring the noise point, its annoying as it’s not the usual sound that rushing air makes. Instead it stands out from the rest of your case noise, rather than just adding to it. It’s far from deafening, but it is still there.

After running the benchmarking on the cooler, there isn’t a huge difference between max and min RPM and so it’s a good idea to leave it mid-way which stops the fan rattling and keeps noise to a minimum.

The results are pretty awesome. Couple this cooler with good case ventilation and you’ll keep your CPU happy and have plenty of room to overclock with.