Took a trip to Best Buy today and picked up one of their Rocketfish universal coolers. I was thinking of getting the HD 50 water cooler or the SpinQ, but my system really doesn't run that hot so I wasn't sure I wanted to plunk down 70 or 80 bucks on a cooler just yet. Especially when the reviews I have read on those two were not overly impressive. 29 dollars and some change I can afford though. I figured I would give it a shot just for the heck of it.
This is just your average 3 pipe air cooler with a 92 mm fan (around 50 cfm). Looks to be a re branded thermaltake or coolmaster honestly. Rocketfish is Best Buys own brand name. So they probably do what Cabela's and other chain stores do. Pay someone to put their name on a product already being made. It does come with a bracket to install a second fan if you want and you can change the location and direction of the existing fan. And its universal so it fits lots of different sockets. I have an AMD am2+/am3 so it was pretty easy to install for me. I guess some of them you have to pull the mobo and put a bracket on the back or something. No different than any of the other coolers however.
It comes stock with the fan blowing air into the fins, I reversed it so it pulls air through them. I also moved my 80mm/80cfm intake fan to the back of my case so it it lines up with the rear of this cooler. So I have fresh air being pulled in and blown right into the cooler from the back and the stock cooler fan is pulling the air out of the fins and blowing it towards an exhaust fan in the front of my computer. I also have a 120mm exhaust fan on the side of case.
My system is an AMD Athlon II X2 240 overclocked from 2.8 to 3.5. Before this it was running on the stock heatsink and fan. I ran some tests just before installing the new cooler and then ran them again after installing it and swapping my exhaust and intake fan positions.
With the stock cooler I was getting 31C at idle and 56-58C under a full load with prime 95 running for 10 minutes.
With the new cooler my temps dropped to 20C at idle and 35C under the same full load.
I would have been happy if it brought my temps down to 50C under a load, 45C and I would have felt I got my moneys worth. 35C at a 20 degree decrease over stock was a very pleasant surprise indeed. I had to look everything over and retest a few times just to make sure I didn't do something wrong lol.
I honestly can't see the HD 50 or the SpinQ doing any better than that so I am glad I didn't drop more than twice the money on one of those. I am sure there are other coolers that perform better than this one but I can't imagine much better considering the price. I think a lot of it had to do with the fan I put behind it, but you can easily hook another 92mm fan to this cooler with the provided bracket and achieve close to the same thing. As long as you have adequate exhaust in your case. I have about 80 cfm of intake and about 140 cfm of exhaust in my system.
So if someone is looking for a decent small air cooler this one is worth looking at for $30 dollars. Can probably get one or something similar online for even less.
Paul
This is just your average 3 pipe air cooler with a 92 mm fan (around 50 cfm). Looks to be a re branded thermaltake or coolmaster honestly. Rocketfish is Best Buys own brand name. So they probably do what Cabela's and other chain stores do. Pay someone to put their name on a product already being made. It does come with a bracket to install a second fan if you want and you can change the location and direction of the existing fan. And its universal so it fits lots of different sockets. I have an AMD am2+/am3 so it was pretty easy to install for me. I guess some of them you have to pull the mobo and put a bracket on the back or something. No different than any of the other coolers however.
It comes stock with the fan blowing air into the fins, I reversed it so it pulls air through them. I also moved my 80mm/80cfm intake fan to the back of my case so it it lines up with the rear of this cooler. So I have fresh air being pulled in and blown right into the cooler from the back and the stock cooler fan is pulling the air out of the fins and blowing it towards an exhaust fan in the front of my computer. I also have a 120mm exhaust fan on the side of case.
My system is an AMD Athlon II X2 240 overclocked from 2.8 to 3.5. Before this it was running on the stock heatsink and fan. I ran some tests just before installing the new cooler and then ran them again after installing it and swapping my exhaust and intake fan positions.
With the stock cooler I was getting 31C at idle and 56-58C under a full load with prime 95 running for 10 minutes.
With the new cooler my temps dropped to 20C at idle and 35C under the same full load.
I would have been happy if it brought my temps down to 50C under a load, 45C and I would have felt I got my moneys worth. 35C at a 20 degree decrease over stock was a very pleasant surprise indeed. I had to look everything over and retest a few times just to make sure I didn't do something wrong lol.
I honestly can't see the HD 50 or the SpinQ doing any better than that so I am glad I didn't drop more than twice the money on one of those. I am sure there are other coolers that perform better than this one but I can't imagine much better considering the price. I think a lot of it had to do with the fan I put behind it, but you can easily hook another 92mm fan to this cooler with the provided bracket and achieve close to the same thing. As long as you have adequate exhaust in your case. I have about 80 cfm of intake and about 140 cfm of exhaust in my system.
So if someone is looking for a decent small air cooler this one is worth looking at for $30 dollars. Can probably get one or something similar online for even less.
Paul
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