Review: Nofan CR-95C IcePipe

Thoughts and rating

Let's be honest, when we first laid our eyes on NoFan's CR-95C IcePipe cooler, we thought someone, somewhere, was having a laugh at our expense. And in some ways, we haven't been able to shake off that feeling of amusement.

Throughout our time with the cooler, we continued to poke fun at the giant circle in our test PC (Tarinder said it best with "do you reckon it receives Sky Sports?"), and we never felt entirely comfortable with an 823g behemoth attached to our motherboard.

But our criticisms are mostly superficial, and let's face it, the CR-95C IcePipe isn't the ugliest CPU cooler we've ever seen (Thermaltake's Jing springs to mind) and our motherboard has taken on heaver loads and is still going strong.

Get past the scale of it, and you'll find that NoFan's cooler does exactly what it says on the tin; it cools 95W CPUs without breaking a sweat, and without making a noise.

It works as intended, and the passive cooling capability exceeded our expectations, but we're still struggling to see who exactly would stump up the cash for such an unusual solution. Enthusiast users will be put off by the 95W cap, the cooler's size rules out installation in many HTPC chassis, and the £85 price tag is likely to deter those who just want to give it a try.

Bottom line: If nothing but a dead-silent PC will do, the CR-95C IcePipe warrants a closer look, but you've got to be hell-bent on silence to consider a solution as outlandish as this.

The Good

Good cooling performance
Makes no noise

The Bad

It's seriously big
Expensive at around £85

HEXUS Rating

Nofan CR-95C IcePipe

HEXUS Where2Buy

The Nofan CR-95C IcePipe CPU cooler is available to purchase from scan.co.uk* and quietpc.com.

HEXUS Right2Reply

At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.