Gelid Tranquillo 5 – the fifth revision of the legendary cooler

Tranquillo coolers from Gelid Solutions have been very popular in the past for their solid cooling efficiency at an affordable price. Recently, the fifth revision of this cooler was launched, offering a change in overall design and featuring a matte black finish. Price-wise, however, the Gelid Tranquillo rev. 5 is a direct competitor to some very solid coolers of late and so I am very curious to see how it fares against them in today’s review.

Key features of the cooler

The design of this cooler is very straightforward and does not hide any tricky details. A relatively slim but dense bundle of forty-nine aluminium fins is connected by four copper heatpipes, which also directly form the contact surface of the cooler in its base. However, there are gaps between the heatpipes at the base, which could negatively affect the effectiveness of heat transfer from the CPU’s heat spreader. Recently, we have seen in tests that base designs without gaps between heatpipes usually yield better results.

      

The cooler is symmetrically designed, but thanks to its slim profile, there is no interference with the RAM DIMM slots. The fins of the heatsink have two wide notches on both sides, which aim to improve acoustic performance and also optimize airflow through the heatsink. However, the treatment of the top surface of the heatsink with the ends of the heatpipe is unfortunately a little sketchy. At this price range, I would expect some cosmetic touches to cover the ends of the heatpipe, especially if the manufacturer went to the trouble of matte black finishing of the entire heatsink.

Included in the package you will find the standard accessories you would expect to find in a cooler of this class. So you there’s mounting systems for installing the cooler on current CPU sockets including the latest LGA 1700. Threadripper processors are not supported, but that is not to be expected with a cooler in this class either. In the package you will also find a thermal paste and an applicator for spreading it on the processor’s heat spreader. A clean user manual with installation instructions rounds everything off. A set of clips for installing another fan is missing, but with a cooler this slim it would be pointless to add another fan for a push-pull configuration anyway.

   

The cooler installation is pleasantly straightforward. Just screw on the base arms for either Intel or AMD socket. Then the whole set can be attached to the included backplate for Intel socket, or use the native backplate for AMD socket. The screws for fixing the cooler to the CPU are equipped with springs for optimal pressure and the whole installation of the cooler is a matter of a few moments.

The cooler and fan parameters

It is already clear from the photos that Tranquillo rev. 5 is not a giant and it is a very compact cooler. Out of curiosity I compared it with two popular coolers from SilentiumPC, which Tranquillo competes with in terms of price and size.

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The fan used has an uninteresting technical designation. However, it offers a solid airflow of around 111 m³/hr and a static pressure of 1.47 mm H₂O, which are more than sufficient parameters for a relatively slim heatsink of the cooler. The speed range is also acceptable, I would have appreciated a lower minimum speed of around 300–400 rpm.

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