Nine Big Air Coolers For Intel's Haswell CPUs, Reviewed

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The one-per-brand limit is a time constraint. At 1.1 days per cooler (including photos and writing) this article already took two work weeks. Two per brand would have been impossible to schedule.


 
I really don't understand why the Noctua D-14 was not tested??? Hello THG?

I am using the D-14 with three fans running VERY quit; two of their new 150mm fans running at 750 rpm behind the 120mm @ 900 on a 4770K in a bitfenix shinobi as it seems to unsurpassable with anything else this quiet and cool.

 
"Troll much? The FACT is that Noctua said use this. That's the end of the Noctua story, anything you'd like to add after that is counter-factual.

You'd be placing the blame wrongly, if there were any blame to place. Now if you want some clue as to how it should perform, read the noc-vs-phan review. It's linked. Good luck."
Click to expand...
Crashman - what a trollish answer to a common sense statement that not only I but multiple posters have brought up. You are the troll here if anyone is.

The poster right after me asked another common sense questions, "Is there any reason why you cannot test both the NH-D14 and cooler Noctua recommended? Is this poster a troll also? I don't think so. Like I said this is just common sense.

Don't run around calling people names when the omission of the NH-D14 is glaringly obvious to anyone who has researched major coolers.
 
Sorry, small niggle, but you've got the Scythe and Silverstone images swapped on the first page.

And anyone else think the Dark Knight looks like a Gaia with a paint job and better fan?
 
I really hate to be "that guy" and stick up for the "man"... but really some people here aren't wrapping their heads around this very well. THG is a media/review company. That means they survive 100% on revenue provided by sponsors and advertisers. There is not a pile of money in this... so most of the tech they have in their office is DONATED for the review process by the tech companies looking for a little free advertisement.

Read how the air coolers were selected. THG put out a notice to the tech firms they were doing this article and invited them to provide tech for the purpose of the review. Noctua chose to use a new air cooler rather then it's best unit... likely for the purpose of selling the new product. Obviously that choice worked out as it got a recommendation from THG, so it's clearly a quality if not high end product.

If Tom's started to put other air coolers into the test, from companies without their consent, they will ruin their relationship with those companies, perhaps those companies won't send them parts the next time they ask if they want to provide anything for a review or monthly build or something. they can't afford to go out and buy new tech parts every time they need to make a build for an article so they have to respect the opinions and suggestions of the sponcering tech partners.

YES a nh-14 would probably perform pretty well in that test... though pretty well is relative. None of those air coolers were amazing effective, proving that none of them are really sufficient for haswell. From the benching that's been done on haswell chips, you really do need something more robust then an air cooler... a high end AIO water cooler, or a DIY water loop are probably required now if you want a haswell overclock over 4.5ghz and don't want to buy a bunch of chips looking for a golden overclocker. (there really are foundries which have huge issues with their haswell chips and temps... especially in SE asia, many of those chips won't go past 4.2ghz on air)
 
 
What I would like to see is a test that uses one fan, swapped out for each cooler. That way the fan shows what actual cooler is best. Fans are easy to swap and lets face it, all fans are not created equally.

Just a thought.
 
The Zalman CNPS10X Optima has been as cheap as $3 after rebate and can be picked up for $10-20 after rebate quite regularly (Currently $17 AR on Newegg) I would have liked to see the ZALMAN CNPS9900MAX or COOLER MASTER V8 in this review as these coolers provide great performance and are can often be obtained for less than or around $30 after rebate.
 
Very nice article indicating some air cooling issues with the Haswell. I think this should have been done much sooner, so people can decide if they should upgrade to Haswell. Knowing whether the processor is overclockable on 'air' could be a deal breaker for some people.

BTW, does anybody know if the Haswell will thermo thottle on the Intel Stock cooler (on stock voltages)? Any reviews/comparison charts on that matter?
 
I'm confused, has there not been a product release from brands i'm actually familiar with? Xigmatech, Thermaltake, Coolermaster... Who is Ashura and did he just save me 10% on my car insurance?
 


some haswell WILL thermal throttle on stock settings with their turbo mode on the stock cooler. It depends on the batch, but generally the chips out of SE Asia tend to be very hot.

this article claims thermal throttling at stock settings, and thermal throttling with a robust air cooler on some chips at 4.2ghz http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2013/06/06/haswell-heat/
this reviewer made it to 4.2 on the stock cooler http://www.legitreviews.com/article/2203/14/
there are some youtube reviews as well which highlight the problems with the stock cooler and haswell. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVaV7jaLXa0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqr06oL_hwk
 
Read what you said. You started hurling insults dishonestly? Did you see me say that about any other post?
Hurling insults in spite of information to the contrary is neither useful nor appreciated. It doesn't add to the conversation, it detracts from it. I probably should have used the word "flame" but that can be taken multiple ways.
Xigmatek is in there, but you might have missed it with everything organized alphabetically.
 
Pity the Noctua still looks so horrid with the brown, etc. I'm surprised
you didn't praise the Phanteks more; certainly looks much nicer with
a black HS and white fans (3 of them I might add, testing with only 2
is a bit odd).

Ian.

 


That's why I chose the Phanteks for a 3930K - I kept reading reviews which showed it was slightly
better than the D14, and the mildly extra noise wasn't an issue, not with four GPUs in the case. 😀

The Phanteks was also a lot cheaper than the D14, looks nicer too.

Having said that, I agree with those who said water cooling should be a consideration for hw of
this category, ie. the heat levels involved. With the sucky ambient air temps at this time of year,
I've gone the extra mile this time, finished building a heat shield today for the back windows. 😀
Otherwise the sunlight during the day shoots the air temp up to 27C or so, at which point keeping
a 3930K below 80C becomes a tad tricky.

I was thinking of trying an H100, but I don't have the right type of case (it's a HAF 932). Anyone know
of a good info resource for the starting point of external water cooling setups? The case has holes for
piping, but not enough space for an internal fan asy like an H100 (PSU is at the top in order to permit
4 GPUs inside).

Ian.

 




Acording to Linus from LinusTechTips, there suppose to be some black fans coming to market sometime this year. :)
 
My Phanteks Setup:

FX8350 at 5.1 ghz.\1.384 volts\Phanteks PH-TC14PE\110 CFM Scythe Fans\Asrock 990FX Extreme 9.



2013-04-01_18-13-33_963_zps3c011337.jpg
 
Xigmatek should have kept the fan that comes with the Night Hawk. It was already putting in one of the smallest (and the lightest) heatsinks, they didn't need to give it a crappy fan as well. Then again, it might not have made a whole lot of difference.

Either way, kudos for them for submitting it. I think they just wanted a bit of face-time, since I think the cooler is only rated for 160w?
 


My Antec Ninehundred and Two isn't built for the h100 either. $3 and some velcro strips from walmart with a little epoxy and a hobby knife made one hell of an awesome velcro quick install/mounting system for the rad. It's a tight fit but it works perfect.

You can also look into a h80i, that should fit your case perfect, and by most benches it is about as good as a h100; i would have gone for a h80i if i hadn't got such an amazing deal on this h100... ($50, new)
 
Xigmatek should have kept the fan that comes with the Night Hawk. It was already putting in one of the smallest (and the lightest) heatsinks, they didn't need to give it a crappy fan as well. Then again, it might not have made a whole lot of difference.

Either way, kudos for them for submitting it. I think they just wanted a bit of face-time, since I think the cooler is only rated for 160w?
 
It's funny, the photos and writing are harder than the actual test so when I got done I tossed my old MUX-120 on there. Using its original pushpin bracket, a 30-second installation. And it ran as cool as the larger Scythe Ashura. If anyone expected progress in the cooling market, they were mistaken.

 
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