I've got the Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 and my 2500k i5 is solid on 4.7GHz while being one the the quietest in the test.
No idea if it's the best or not, but I'm happy with it! Might get the Artic Cooling's replacement system for my stock GTX 680 too because I'm that happy with their products.
Great work. I'd been looking for a test like this for ages and ended up getting the Dark Rock Pro 2 based on reputation alone.
I haven't been disappointed, my 3570k idles <25C and only gets to 54C at 100% @ 4.4GHz
I would have loved to have seen the Phanteks ph-tc14pe in that, though I already know it's an amazing cooler <3
Good to see that Arctic Cooling are still doing a pretty good job for the money they ask. Might grab one to see if it brings down my mates FX 8150 a few degrees and cuts down the horrific noise from the stock cooler (over 5000 rpm…60 deg, takes me back to the days of some of the early Thunderbird coolers!).
If it doesn't do enough there I can always use it on my i5.
would be useful to do higher bracket coolers which cost more than £50
I have the Coolermaster Hyper 212+ with a Arctic Cooling F12 PWM fan
Great to see a group HSF review Hexus!
skip these mate i'll keep my Noctua dh-14's does the job and keeps my 2500k cool way under 35c even in our British summer heat waves we have had. The highest temps so far has been 40c but on average it's 35c.
The 2500k is a cool chip. For those of us on IB the cooler has a much greater importance.
Excellent review. The Arctic Freezer 13 will now be my CPU cooler.
It's near enough a ‘given’ that almost anyone who buys an aftermarket cooler or builds their own PC is an enthusiast.
So a cooler that is so big that it blocks off a RAM slot should be given a mandatory “Do Not Buy” label. To casually overlook this important point is seriously remiss.
It's only by saying it exactly like it is, that manufacturers just MIGHT take some notice and desist from bringing products to market that carry very obvious major flaws.
Tropi
It's near enough a ‘given’ that almost anyone who buys an aftermarket cooler or builds their own PC is an enthusiast.
So a cooler that is so big that it blocks off a RAM slot should be given a mandatory “Do Not Buy” label. To casually overlook this important point is seriously remiss.
It's only by saying it exactly like it is, that manufacturers just MIGHT take some notice and desist from bringing products to market that carry very obvious major flaws.
Plenty of people have RAM without ridiculous (and pointless) heatsinks.
Nice roundup guys keep up the good work
I have the arctic's bigger brother the pro 13, was a bit worried that it was an inferior cooler, I have been looking at other coolers lately as I thought my temps for a 4.5oc 2500k @ 56deg during gaming and 67deg with prime, Great to see quality photo's of the coolers fitted in a case showing ram clearance as I have vengeance hp. Great review.
No silver arrow (extreme)?
I've got a Zalman CNPS9900MAX-R on my 2500k i5 and I have a very difficult time getting the highest core temp up over 50 degrees C, and that's under full load - at idle, it's around 34 or so. Looks like I made the right choice!
Nice group test - I would say that the Thermalright Silver Arrow would blow most of these out of the water and be pretty quiet whilst doing so … a bargain @£53 if you have a big enough case to house it.:)