The Czech company Axagon has a lot of SSD coolers with attractive designs. You can see this at a glance – a monolithic, well-articulated heatsink always works. You can’t “go wrong” there. We’ll go through all available variants of Axagon coolers in our tests, but we’ll start with the one this company started with. The CLR-M2 has been enjoying user favor for a long time and in the tests we will find out if rightfully so. Read more “Axagon CLR-M2: Large surface area (fins) with low height”
Arctic is renumbering the MX thermal pastes (from 5 to 6) faster than ever before. The MX-5 arrived just last year, but earlier this year there was a report that some batches were drying up prematurely. As a result of such a shortcoming, customer confidence in these thermal pastes may have been so lowered that a new model is the best route to take from a business perspective. And here it is, unfortunately again without the basic parameters. Read more “Arctic MX-6 thermal paste is out, a quick replacement for the MX-5”
Simple but clever. The Noctua NA-IS1-1x supplementary frames are an extension to the existing fan frames, which provide greater clearance from an obstacle, thus mitigating microturbulence, which naturally reduces the noise level of the entire cooling system. To what extent, you’ll find out later from our tests, for now let’s take a look at what it’s actually all about and how it all works. Read more “Noctua has frames (NA-IS1) to reduce microturbulence”
We come to the analysis of a fan that even if it dates back to cooling prehistory, many manufacturers are only now discovering the aerodynamic qualities of its design. Although the Gentle Typhoon is a great inspiration to many manufacturers (including Noctua), it does have one weakness. And a rather fundamental one. It is very high, excessive vibrations, which we will unusually devote a separate test to. Read more “Gentle Typhoon’s high vibrations resemble SilverStone’s sins”
The Noctua NF-A12x25 fan may be the closest to perfection of the 120mm fans, but even the best things have their weaknesses. This will be no exception and there are elements of the NF-A12x25 that make sense to get into. And that this is true, Noctua will prove sooner or later in the next generation of 120 mm fans. But we’ll discuss the topic of what exactly to tweak, to do neater, right now.. Read more “HWCooling tips to optimize the Noctua NF-A12x25 fan”
While modern processors offer high performance, this is inevitably linked to the need for highly effective cooling. So I’m always happy to welcome a cooler on the market with the promise of high effectiveness at an interesting price. One of them is the AK620, which represents the top of DeepCool’s range. It offers a modern design, an attractive price tag and the potential to cool even high-end processors. So we’ll see how well it performs in our stress tests. Read more “DeepCool AK620 – Solid dual-tower cooler for a good price”
Standalone graphics card coolers have not been increasing in numbers lately. This is probably also due to non-reference graphics cards that include a decent cooler. But Raijintek still sees some room in them and is preparing a new revision of Morpheus – 8069. Big heatsink, big fans, high TDP (360 W) and silent operation even with performance that is otherwise (with built-in coolers) “audible”. Read more “Raijintek isn’t done with GPU coolers, readying the Morpheus 8069”
With the addition of the Shadow Wings 2 tests, you now have a full overview of the features of all unlit BeQuiet! fans in 120 mm format. Shadow Wings 2 is between Silent Wings 3 and Pure Wings 2 in terms of both price and design. In terms of efficiency, they are closer to the more expensive Silent Wings 3 and in certain situations they give top-notch results. Given the lower price, this can be a very attractive option, but there are some things to look out for. Read more “BeQuiet! Shadow Wings 2 (BL085): A cheaper option”
Until now, no fans with ARGB LEDs have been made from liquid crystal polymers. Now, the Toughfan 12 RGB and Toughfan 14 RGB are changing that. And since the aerodynamic performance is heavily dependent on the rigidity of the blades, especially in restrictive environments, Thermaltake’s rendition will be some of the most efficient flashy fans overall. If not the most efficient, the Toughfans have the geometry for it. Read more “The very first LCP fans with LEDs are from Thermaltake”
For rather incomprehensible reasons, the cooling performance of the vast majority of AIO liquid coolers is degraded by the use of an unsuitable backplate. The backplate is usually undersized, made of plastic, and cannot exert optimal pressure on the processor. To give you an idea of how a “traditional” plastic backplate stacks up against a proper, steel one, we’ve prepared a comparison of the two. Read more “Plastic vs. metal backplate Alphacool (under LGA 1700)”
Noctua has announced a new release schedule for its products. And within it, the main question was this – Did the new generation of 140mm fans stay in the fourth quarter of 2022? It did. Given the more advanced time (towards the end of the year), it is thus likely that 140mm fans made from improved LCP from sterrox are right around the corner. Noctua also needs them for the successor to the NH-D15 cooler, which is due out just after them. Read more “Noctua’s current roadmap: 140mm “sterroxes” later this year”
The large number of creases on the heat spreader of CPUs for the AMD AM5 platform means a lot of places where thermal paste can run off and dry out. Removing it is then very laborious when cleaning, which is why Noctua has released a frame to protect these critical spots. And it will also protect the exposed SMD next to the heat spreader from paste or possibly liquid metals. Read more “Paste on AM5 won’t get where it doesn’t belong – Noctua NA-TPG1”
The SilentiumPC brand is undergoing a change to Endorfy today, and along with this change is the launch of the new liquid all-in-one cooler from the Navis series. Similar to the Navis F240, today’s new addition features the excellent Fluctus series fans. Moreover, the Endorfy Navis F280 will also surely impress you with its attractive price tag of just under 100 EUR. What we have here is a solid potential for a very attractive price-performance ratio. Read more “Endorfy Navis F280 – Another bullseye among AIO coolers”
BeQuiet! has released an official statement on which of their coolers support the new AMD platform with the AM5/LGA 1718 socket. Physically, almost all models can be installed, but still make sure you don’t happen to have the one that can’t. It’s also good to know that for full compatibility, the right spacing of holes is not enough, but also the right cooling performance. Only two coolers are recommended by BeQuiet! for the Ryzen 9 processors. Read more “We have a list of BeQuiet! coolers with AMD AM5 support”
The choice of liquid metals is rather limited. And even the few options, that are designed for application in PCs, have fairly poor distribution. This could be changed/improved by the involvement of Thermaltake, which after all has a wider field of operation than the above mentioned companies. Their solution (TG-60) is a replacement for conventional pastes, but with significantly higher thermal conductivity. Read more “Thermaltake TG-60 is a new, hopefully more available liquid metal”
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