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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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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Friday, 02 January 2015 09:27
While water cooling has been especially popular over the last few years, there are still a lot of people who would prefer to not deal with the additional risks and installation complication. On top of that, when you are looking for really high end cooling it actually costs a lot more than you think to go water cooling. This is where companies like Noctua come in. You see cheap water cooling doesn’t always compete with air cooling, especially when it comes to noise. So Noctua continues to innovate in the air cooling market. Their top dog is called the NH-D15. Well they sent one out a while back and being the slackers that we are it ended up pushed back. Today I will finally have the chance to check out their biggest and best to see just how it compares to the completion both on the air and water cooling sides.
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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Friday, 05 December 2014 14:09
I remember just over 5 years ago at CES was the first time I had ever seen a sealed water cooling system. At the time, it seemed a little crazy. How would it fit various PCs? What about maintenance? At that time the only real options were custom setups using parts designed for fish tanks. That company introduced their kit later on (Cool-It’s Domino), it had its share of problems, not to mention trying to convince people you weren’t crazy when you said you want to put water inside of their PC. Years later it feels like everyone has gotten into the market and those designs have improved year after year. Cooler Master for the last few years has been trying there hand at it. Today I have the chance to dig in check out their latest model, the Nepton 240M. They have had a few Nepton models before but this is the first 240mm model.
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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Wednesday, 05 November 2014 11:02
For years now I have been a huge fan of Noctua products, especially their fans. I will admit though, it took me a while to get used to the odd brown colors that they use. After a while I came to the conclusion that it was worth having fans that didn’t necessarily go with my builds because their performance is amazing. Recently Noctua finally introduced two new fan product lines that feature two new color schemes that most likely will fit a little better with most builds while still being unique enough to still stand out as Noctua fans. Today I will be checking out their IndustrialPPC and Redux fan lines. IndustrialPPC is black with a dark brown and Redux are light grey with a dark grey. We know how well Noctua fans perform so today I will mostly just be showing off the new color schemes. Enjoy!
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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Wednesday, 02 July 2014 23:24
It is easy to get carried away with size and bulk in the air cooler market. Many tower coolers have moved on to incorporate 140mm fans into their designs and push the limits on available board real estate around the CPU socket. Still there is a market for value market air-cooling that doesn’t take up space and still gives you competitive performance for your dollar. Recently we took a look at the NH-U12S and today we are back with a smaller cooler offering by Evercool. This four heat pipe 120mm air cooler promises to offer you a cooler processor without the need to hand over your wallet. Join me as we take a look at the Venti and see if this budget cooler is worth your time and money.
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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Monday, 28 April 2014 07:39
Recently we reviewed the NH-U12S from Noctua, an efficiently designed tower cooler sized to combat most of the negative aspects that air coolers tend to face and we were pleasantly surprised by the performance. Today we take a look at the much larger NH-U14S from Noctua with a similar focus reasonable sizing and space for RAM and other board components while still bringing that top tier Noctua performance we have all come to expect. Will the U14S improve upon its smaller counterparts numbers or will we be left wanting? Join me to find out.
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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Wednesday, 16 April 2014 11:50
Noctua has always been known for their quality products and high performance air coolers. The issue with tower air coolers is that they often tend to be large, heavy and cover up portions of your motherboard under their bulk. While most companies have shifted their focus to the less intrusive all-in-one liquid coolers, Noctua has stayed true to their air cooling roots. Today we take a look at their NH-U12S performance cooler; a tower cooler in a smaller, more space friendly package that promises the same performance you would get out of larger, bulkier models and run it through our tests. Is the age of air cooling at an end or just in transition? We’ll find out.
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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Wednesday, 27 November 2013 20:16
Lately we’ve been taking a look at CPU coolers for larger ATX setups in more traditional cases but with the recent Lunchbox build it is clear that the little guys need some attention. To that end we will be taking a look at the AXP-100 cooler from Thermalright and designed for ITX systems. We’ll be running the cooler through the same battery of tests as the rest of our coolers to see its performance against the big boys. Unfair for sure but as we have seen, ITX builds aren’t just for media centers anymore.
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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Wednesday, 20 November 2013 11:39
Today we are back with another AIO water cooling solution, this time from Corsair’s award-winning Hydro series. While Corsair has certainly been the king of the mountain for a while in the AIO market, competitors have recently made some quite impressive challenges to the throne. The H80i promises high performance cooling and unparalleled control via its built-in Corsair Link controller in a package fitting the Corsair name. With integrated Corsair Link functionality and a push-pull fan configuration where will the H80i land on our charts? Read on to find out.
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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Monday, 04 November 2013 16:37
Having recently reviewed a cadre of big block, multi-heat pipe air coolers it is about time to switch things up and today that is exactly what we will do by taking a look at an AIO water-cool solution enthusiasts have been anticipating. Back in July, many were troubled by the news that Swiftech would be ceasing sales on its popular H220 AIO/DIY hybrid cooling kit due to a patent dispute. While some chose to import units, others simply took the news in stride and searched elsewhere for their cooling hardware. Today is the day that all ends as Cooler Master have partnered with Swiftech to bring us a spiritual successor in the form of the Glacer 240L.
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