What makes an effective heat pipe CPU heatsink?
May 30, 2024 - Frosty No.2804
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
Heat pipes are incredibly efficient thermal management devices used in the construction of most of the CPU coolers Frostytech has reviewed. Though simple in appearance, these thin copper tubes bent into gentle curves literally determine the fate of your computer hardware!
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Cryorig H5 Ultimate Heatsink Review
Nov 18, 2019 - Frosty No.2803
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
The heatsink's mounting base is
positioned asymmetrically (off to one side) to improve RAM clearance on motherboards where the CPU socket is surrounded by memory DIMMs.
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Cryorig H7 Heatsink Review
May 23, 2019 - Frosty No.2802
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
The Cryorig H7 is a mid-tower cooler which
stands 145mm tall and comes equipped with a single 120mm PWM fan. The H7 is built around three 6mm diameter nickel
plated heatpipes that are swaged into a 100mm tall array of raw aluminum cooling fins.
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Arctic Liquid Freezer 240 CPU Watercooler Review
Feb 12, 2019 - Frosty No.2801
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
Arctic's Liquid Freezer 240 ships fully assembled, plumbed and filled. The whole system weighs around 1190grams and installs onto Intel socket LGA115x/2011(-3) processors and AMD socket AM2/AM3/FM1/FM2 CPUs.
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Silverstone Tundra TD02 CPU Liquid Cooling Heatsink Review
Nov 05, 2018 - Frosty No.2736
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
Silverstone's Tundra TD02 CPU liquid cooler offers up some refreshing design elements for the computer enthusiast looking to assemble a system that stands out from the crowd. In place of the standard black heat exchanger we find something vaguely reminiscent of a Mac, or a Star Wars set...
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Silverstone Tundra TD03 CPU Liquid Cooler Review
Nov 04, 2018 - Frosty No.2737
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
UPDATED! This is a review of the Silverstone Tundra TD03 self contained liquid cooling system. The Tundra TD03 consists of a waterblock with integrated copper base plate attached to a small 120mm heat exchanger via 310mm long white FEP tubing.
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Arctic Liquid Freezer 120 CPU Watercooler Review
Oct 09, 2018 - Frosty No.2800
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
Arctic's Liquid Freezer 120 ships fully assembled, plumbed and filled. The whole system weighs around 942grams and installs onto Intel socket LGA115x/2011(-3) processors and AMD.
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Scythe Mugen 5 Rev B SCMG-5100 Heatsink Review
Nov 18, 2017 - Frosty No.2799
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
The Scythe Mugen 5 Rev B (SCMG-5100) heatsink is a lower-noise tower cooler standing 154mm tall and equipped with a single 120mm PWM fan. The Mugen 5 Rev B is constructed around six 6mm diameter nickel plated heatspipes which are swaged onto an array of raw aluminum cooling fins.
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Gelid Tranquillo 4 Air Cooled Heatsink Review
May 08, 2017 - Frosty No.2798
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
The Gelid Tranquillo 4 is built around four 16mm diameter copper heatpipes, a stack of ~40 nickel plated aluminum fins and a very unremarkable 1600rpm,
120mm PWM fan. The heatsink makes use of 'exposed heatpipe base'
thermal design.
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Coolermaster Ergostand III Laptop Cooling Stand Review
Jan 01, 2017 - Frosty No.2797
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
Technically speaking, the Coolermaster Ergostand III supports laptops with footprints up to 15" wide and 11" deep at an angle of 3.5°or as high as 50° vertical.
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Noctua NH-D9DXi4-3U LGA2011 Xeon Server/Workstation Heatsink Review
Apr 10, 2016 - Frosty No.2795
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
The Noctua NH-D9DXi4-3U is a mid-sized heatsink designed specifically for lower noise cooling of Intel Xeon processors in 3U height computer/server chassis. It's compact stature makes it ideal for rack mounted computers in a recording studio, video editing suite, operations control center...
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Noctua NH-L9x65 Low Profile Heatsink Review
Apr 10, 2016 - Frosty No.2796
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
Noctua's low profile NH-L9x65 heatsink stands just 64mm tall and has a very compact footprint of only 95x95mm. The NH-L9x65 is designed to cool some fairly intensive Intel sockets, along with the full spectrum of AMD processors and APUs. Compact CPU coolers can be a little tricky to install, but Noctua long ago laid down the framework of an excellent motherboard mounting system,, so the NH-L9x65 is a breeze to work with.
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Scythe Fuma SCFM-1000 Heatsink
Apr 04, 2016 - Frosty No.2794
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
The 920gram Scythe Fuma heatsink is constructed around six 6mm diameter copper heatpipes and a pair of aluminum fin stacks that measure 104x130x37mm (HxWxD) in size. The heatpipes are liberally soldered to a chunky nickel plated copper base plate, this plate helps to more evenly conduct heat away from hot-spot ridden multi-core CPUs.
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Scythe Ninja 4 SCNH-4000 Heatsink Review
Feb 08, 2016 - Frosty No.2793
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
While Scythe doesn't overtly market its heatsinks as "silent" coolers, the
company has typically produced coolers which meet the quiet esthetic.
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DeepCool Maelstrom 240 Liquid Cooling System Review
Jan 04, 2016 - Frosty No.2792
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
DeepCool's Maelstrom 240 is a self contained CPU liquid
cooling system consists of a dual fan, 240mm wide aluminum heat
exchanger and combination pump head / skived copper waterblock. With Frostytech's synthetic thermal test platforms applying up to a 200W heat load, only we can accurately rank how the Maelstrom 240 liquid cooler stacks up
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DeepCool Gamer Storm Lucifer K2 Heatsink Review
Jan 02, 2016 - Frosty No.2791
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
DeepCool's Gamer Storm Lucifer K2 heatsink is a revised version of the original Gamer Storm Lucifer heatsink, which Frostytech tested about a year back. The Lucifer K2 heatsink only differs in that it's not nickel plated and ships with a slim profile (20mm thick)120mm fan which makes the heatsink a little more accommodating on confined motherboards.
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Gelid Antarctica Heatsink Review
Jan 01, 2016 - Frosty No.2790
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
The Gelid Antarctica heatsink features a nice narrow footprint which
measures 141x74mm with the 140mm fan installed. The slim profile
should make the Antarctica cooler more compatible with a larger range of
motherboards.
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Noctua NH-D9L 3U Low Noise Heatsink Review
Aug 10, 2015 - Frosty No.2789
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
The Noctua NH-D9L is a mid-sized heatsink suitable for use in 3U height computer chassis where low noise CPU cooling is desired. It's compact stature makes it ideal for 3U rack mounted computers in a recording studio, office environment or even book-sized miniITX cases.
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BeQuiet Shadow Rock LP Heatsink Review
Aug 03, 2015 - Frosty No.2788
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
The Shadow Rock LP is a 75mm tall low profile heatsink rated for heat loads
up to 130W TDP. It's built around four 6mm diameter copper heatpipes and
relies on a single 120x120x25mm "PureWings" fan operating at 1500RPM.
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IBM Watson Analytics for Heatsink Test Data
Jun 10, 2015 - Frosty No.2787
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
I've been playing with IBM's Watson Analytics, running Frostytech's test data through the wee cloud to see what it can predict. Here are some of the results.
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BeQuiet Dark Rock TF Heatsink Review
May 26, 2015 - Frosty No.2786
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
The Dark Rock TF has an upside-down pyramid sort of profile, measuring
140x165mm at the top and 98x102mm at a height of 22mm above the CPU. It ships
with two identical 135x25mm SilentWings fans that operate 1400RPM and move
upwards of 68CFM at 1.85mm/H2O
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Scythe Mugen Max SCMGD-1000 Heatsink Review
Apr 20, 2015 - Frosty No.2785
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
Scythe's Mugen Max heatsink weighs 870grams and stands 166mm tall. The
heatsink is constructed around six 6mm diameter copper heatpipes which are soldered to a 2mm thick nickel plated copper base plate. The heatpipes are
swaged into a 113x145x84mm aluminum fin stack which is roughly broken up into four nearly-separate cooling towers.
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Phanteks PH-TC12LS Low Profile Heatsink Review
Apr 15, 2015 - Frosty No.2784
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
In this review Frostytech is testing the Phanteks PH-TC12LS heatsink, a top-down low profile heatsink that stands 74mm tall and weighs in at 500grams. The PH-TC12LS has a footprint about the size of the 120mm PWM fan that rests atop its black-painted aluminum fins.
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Phanteks PH-TC14S Slim Tower Heatsink Review
Apr 12, 2015 - Frosty No.2783
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
The whole premise behind the slim-tower Phanteks PH-TC14S heatsink is not overhanging memory slots - if you've built an Intel X99 based computer recently, you're undoubtedly aware that the memory slots straddle either side of the LGA2011-3 CPU socket with a little less than 20mm to spare.
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Scythe Ashura SCASR-1000 Heatsink Review
Apr 06, 2015 - Frosty No.2782
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
On the review bench today we have Scythe's Ashura
heatsink; this is a fairly standard tower cooler equipped with a 140mm
fan. The Ashura cooler stands 162mm tall, making it suitable
for full tower cases where AIO liquid coolers are often too
bulky.
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Noctua NH-U9S Compact Lower Noise Heatsink Review
Mar 02, 2015 - Frosty No.2781
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
The NH-U9S heatsink stands 125mm tall and has a square footprint of 95x95mm. Weighing 618grams, the heatsink is built around five 6mm diameter heatpipes which are soldered to the aluminum cooling fins and copper base plate in typical Noctua fashion.
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ID-Cooling SE-214X Heatsink Review
Feb 05, 2015 - Frosty No.2780
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
By doing away with the heatsink heatspreader, inconsistencies in the solder bond between heatpipes and copper base plate are omitted. The exposed heatpipe base approach also lightens things up, the 160mm tall SE-214X weighs a modest 740grams. In addition to the copper heatpipes there is the aforementioned vertical aluminum rod going down through the center
of the fins.
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BeQuiet Pure Rock Heatsink Review
Jan 26, 2015 - Frosty No.2779
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
On the test bench today we have BeQuiet's Pure Rock heatsink - a 155mm tall tower cooler built around four 6mm diameter copper heatpipes and paired with one of BeQuiet's 'Pure Wings 2' low noise 120mm fans.
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DeepCool Gamer Storm Lucifer Heatsink Review
Jan 02, 2015 - Frosty No.2777
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
The DeepCool Gamer Storm Lucifer heatsink
is a fairly large CPU cooler, very much resembling a
passive thermal solution on quick glance due to its boxy footprint
and widely spaced aluminum fins. The heatsink isn't a passive cooler though,
its single fan is very much required to keep the Lucifer from becoming like its name-sake.
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Raijintek Tisis Dual-Tower Heatsink Review
Dec 29, 2014 - Frosty No.2776
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
The Raijintek Tisis is a massive dual tower CPU cooler with twin fans, five big heatpipes and a kick-ass-and-take-names kind of look to it. The Tisis is a big boxy heatsink that stands upwards of 168mm tall, weighs 1050grams and ships with two lower RPM 140x150mm PWM fans that spin at 1000-600RPM.
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Reeven Okeanos RC-1402 Heatsink Review
Dec 29, 2014 - Frosty No.2775
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
At first glance you probably won't notice that Reeven's Okeanos RC-1402 heatsink uses two slightly different fans - a 120mm vaneaxial fan on the front and a 140mm fan in between the two aluminum fin stacks.
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Reeven Justice RC-1204 Heatsink Review
Dec 28, 2014 - Frosty No.2774
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
The 120mm PWM fan supplied with the Justice RC-1204 heatsink spins at 1500-300RPM and connects via a 4-pin PWM motherboard header. Six 6mm diameter heatpipes connect the 114mm tall aluminum fin stack to the base below.
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Reeven Ouranos RC-1401 Heatsink Review
Dec 28, 2014 - Frosty No.2773
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
What's particularly interesting about the Reeven Ouranos heatsink is not the number of heatpipes or the fact that it's yet another 'tower heatsink'... but that Reeven's thermal engineers have decided to use a combination of 8mm and 6mm diameter heatpipes in concert.
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Reeven Hans RC-1205 Heatsink Review
Dec 25, 2014 - Frosty No.2772
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
The Reeven Hans RC-1205 heatsink weighs in at 710 grams and accommodates the full range of Intel processors (socket
LGA2011-3/2011/1366/115x/775) and AMD CPUs (socket AM2/AM3/FM1/FM2).
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Cooler Master Nepton 240M Liquid Cooling System Review
Nov 04, 2014 - Frosty No.2778
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
Coolermaster's Nepton 240M utilizes a 277x120mm aluminum heat exchanger that measures 28mm thick. The 'Silencio' is a novel high-pressure fan that spins at 2400RPM-800RPM to drive up
to 76CFM at 4.8mmH2O air pressure, according to manufacturer specs. Connecting the heat exchanger to the Nepton 240M's waterblock is a
310mm length of 13mm O.D. corrugated Fluorinated Ethylene Propylene (FEP) tubing.
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Coolermaster Hyper D92 Heatsink Review
Oct 01, 2014 - Frosty No.2771
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
The Coolermaster Hyper D92 is a moderately sized CPU cooler which stands 147mm tall and weighs 636 grams. The Hyper D92 ships with not a 120mm... or even 140mm fan, but rather a pair of 92mm fans that spin at 2800-800RPM. The fans move upwards of 15-55CFM according to manufacturer specs. Small 92mm fans may seem terribly risky, but Coolermaster have a trick up their sleeves.
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BeQuiet Shadow Rock 2 Heatsink Review
Jun 08, 2014 - Frosty No.2770
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
In this review Frostytech is checking out the boxy BeQuiet's Shadow Rock 2 heatsink which stands 159mm tall and weighs in at 1120grams. This heatsink has a footprint of 122x122mm without a fan, 122x149mm with the supplied 1600-800rpm, 120mm PWM fan installed.
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BeQuiet Shadow Rock Slim Heatsink Review
Jun 08, 2014 - Frosty No.2769
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
BeQuiet's Shadow Rock Slim heatsink stands 159mm tall and has a footprint of 130x74mm so it will fit most motherboards where space between the memory slots and videocard is on the tight side.
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BeQuiet Dark Rock 3 Heatsink Review
May 23, 2014 - Frosty No.2768
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
The Dark Rock 3 stands 159mm tall and weighs in at 976 grams. Built around six, 6mm diameter copper heatpipes and a large aluminum fin stack, the Dark Rock 3 is rated to heat loads up to 190W TDP.
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X2 Products Eclipse IV Heatsink Review
May 07, 2014 - Frosty No.2767
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
Bearing close resemblance to the Prolimatech Megahalems Frostytech tested a few years back, the Eclipse IV heatsink is a bifurcated-tower cooler from heatsink manufacturer 'X2 Products' a brand offshoot of Spire Corp. The Eclipse IV heatsink is rated to a maximum cooling capacity of 220W by its makers and at first glance has the gravitas to back that claim up.
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Noctua NH-D15 Heatsink Review
Apr 29, 2014 - Frosty No.2766
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
Weighing 1,320 grams with both fans installed, Noctua's NH-D15 heatsink is big. It stands 162mm tall and has a footprint of 151x161mm so prospective buyers will want to measure their case clearances first. It's six heat pipes are soldered to the nickel plated copper base plate and aluminum cooling fins; overall the fit and finish is top notch.
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Raijintek Pallas Low Profile Heatsink Review
Apr 16, 2014 - Frosty No.2765
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
Standing just 69mm tall, the Raijintek Pallas CPU cooler is probably the largest low profile heatsink Frostytech as tested in recent memory.
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Sandia Cooler: Air Bearing Heatsink Prototype - 2014 Update!
Mar 26, 2014 - Frosty No.2722
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
Unlike traditional CPU coolers, heat energy in the Sandia Cooler is
conducted across a very thin air gap bearing from the stationary base of the cooler to the upper rotating aluminum fin/fan component.
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BeQuiet Dark Rock Pro 3 Low Noise Heatsink Review
Feb 21, 2014 - Frosty No.2764
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
The Dark Rock Pro 3 is dual tower, dual fan, low noise CPU heatsink. In other words, if you want a quiet heatsink that handles like a performance cooler AND you have a motherboard which can accommodate it's boxy footprint, you're reading the right CPU heatsink review!
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Scythe Ashura Shadow Heatsink Review
Feb 17, 2014 - Frosty No.2763
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
The Scythe Ashura Shadow is a dark nickel plated version of the vanilla Ashura heatsink Scythe also has on the market. Structurally, there's no difference between the two coolers, aside from the cosmetic metal coating. The Ashura Shadow heatsink stands 162mm tall and has a footprint of 145x89mm so it should fit most motherboards without memory slot interference.
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SilentiumPC Fera2 HE1224 Heatsink Review
Feb 03, 2014 - Frosty No.2762
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
The SilentiumPC Fera2 HE1224 is a 154mm tall CPU cooler built around four 6mm diameter exposed copper heatpipes. The relatively thin profile should allow it to fit with ease in most motherboards, with a minimum of interference from near by memory module or VRM motherboard heatsinks.
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nPowerTek NPH-1366-115HC Heatsink Review
Feb 03, 2014 - Frosty No.2760
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
At the center of the NPH-1366-115HC heatsink is nPowertek's proprietory copper heat column - essentially a 33mm diameter copper heatpipe. The inner walls and base of the heat column are covered by a sintered metal wick and the contents under vacuum with a small amount of working fluid.
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nPowerTek NPH-1366-140HC Heatsink Review
Jan 30, 2014 - Frosty No.2759
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
The nPowerTek NPH-1366-140HC heatsink is
intended for socket LGA1366 Intel processors up to 130W TDP, but in this
review Frostytech is going to stress it with a 200W heat load and see how it
stacks up.
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Dynatron G666 2U Xeon Server Heatsink Review
Jan 27, 2014 - Frosty No.2757
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
The heatsink is built with a 60mm fan embedded at the front, directing airflow through a short stack of aluminum cooling fins which are connected to a copper base plate by three 6mm diameter heatpipes. The space before and after the heatpipes is filled with two narrow strips of skived copper fins for added cooling surface area.
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Dynatron G556 2U Xeon Server Heatsink Review
Jan 26, 2014 - Frosty No.2756
Category: Cooling / Heatsinks
Dynatron's G556 2U server heatsink includes a pre-applied
patch of thermal compound and four spring-tensioned Intel socket LGA1366
mounting screws. The captive mounting hardware is attached to the body of the
heatsink, so the cooler need only be removed from its packaging before being
installed. A phillips screw driver can be used to torque down the four mounting screws to firmly hold it in place.
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