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Noctua's portfolio of premium fans is ever growing in breadth. They have fans for almost every usage scenario and market segment. The recent introduction of three new fans is the next step in Noctua being able to offer a more extensive range of cooling fans.
Noctua have kindly sent us three of their newest fans for review today. These fans expand Noctua's 140mm fan range - before they launched these new fans they only had a single 140mm fan, the NF-P14 FLX. Two of the new fans are based on the same raw design just with different operating speeds, the NF-A14 FLX (Faster variant) and NF-A14 ULN (Slower variant). The other model we have been sent, the NF-A15 PWM, is something very unique. It is a 140mm fan with a 150mm width (for additional airflow due to bigger fan blades) that features 120mm mounting holes. What this means is you can get extra performance on 120/140mm supported CPU heatsinks where having "fan overhang" isn't an issue - impressive and innovative stuff.
Compared to previous fan reviews I have done here at eTeknix I will be trying a new review method. This time we will be using a CPU heatsink as a proxy for the performance of these three fans. The CPU heatsink in question is the Thermalright Macho Rev.A (BW) and this supports 120/140mm fans. We will continue to do the normal acoustic tests to allow us to compare results with a selection of other fans but we will also have these extra performance proxy results to refer to as well so you can get some indication of performance. I hope this will mean we can offer you more useful fan reviews, but please do leave any feedback that you may have along the way so we can improve the content we offer you. Ultimately it is what you want and think that is most important to us so please be as vocal as you can.
The Coolermaster Gemin II M4 heatsink measures just 61mm tall, from the base of its exposed copper heatpipes to the tippy tip of its translucent vaneaxial fan. How does manage to squeeze in a fan and enough cooling surface area in a package so thin?
A few years ago, 120mm fans were used to get the lowest noise with the highest airflow, and thus better-performing PCs. Now many cases are coming with 140mm mounts as the only way to improve on this is to go bigger.
Although the winter season is not the most ideal time for people to go out to get a brand new CPU Cooler either to replace the stock and somewhat weak (and loud) Intel/AMD HSF or upgrade to something better from an aftermarket solution due to low temperatures still new products are released almost on a daily basis and it's our job to test them. Now as most of you know tower (U-type) CPU Coolers have been around for over half a decade but aside minor design and size differences the main concept/base is always the same. However this is quite understandable since their cooling performance levels are already very good and in some cases they are even maxed out which is why many of the leading manufacturers in the market are turning towards compact liquid CPU Coolers. Not everyone however can afford a liquid CPU Cooler and there are always those who can but don't want to spend much so because of that today we decided to test the latest U-type tower design CPU Cooler by Spire, the X2.9883.
This time, we will test the Zalman LQ315 sealed liquid cooling system for CPUs, with a 120 mm fan at the radiator. Check it out!
The larger brother from the Respire series is up for testing. Let's see what the Respire T40 can do.
SilverStone are a renowned manufacturer of computer cases and we have reviewed a lot of their cases before. However, we've never really delved into any SilverStone CPU coolers despite the fact SilverStone have been making these for a very long time and they produce some of the best CPU coolers in the industry. SilverStone are very well known for their HTPC cases, such as the Grandia series, and as a result they also make low profile CPU coolers that can be used with these cases.
Today we have the SilverStone NT06 Pro Low Profile CPU cooler with us on the test bench (Specifications can be found here). On the face of things this is a very interesting CPU cooler. You've got 6 heat pipes, a low profile heat sink design that accepts a 120mm fan both above and below, a very nice supplied 120mm fan and a flexible mounting kit supporting all major sockets.
As usual we will be giving the SilverStone NT06 Pr0 the eTeknix heat treatment so read on to see how this product from SilverStone performs.
Thermalright's products have never been reviewed by eTeknix before. I am quite excited to get started with Thermalright products as they are one of the most recognised CPU cooler brands for high performance air cooling alongside Noctua and Phanteks.
Thermalright only operate in the performance segment of the market and the majority of the CPU coolers are what you might call enthusiast class - even the smaller form factor ones. They are certainly not beginners having been in the industry since 2001 and their claim to historical fame is they were the first company to start manufacturing copper based CPU coolers all the way back in 2001 whilst everyone else was still stuck on aluminium designs.
Noctua is company known for high quality and excellent performing CPU coolers and fans. It’s safe to say that most of their product line is aimed at the high end user who wants to push their system or CPU to the limits. Enthusiasts, or overclockers they would be called, and that’s all fine and good if you’re that type of person, Noctua certainly has a cooler for you that will keep your CPU cool even under overclocked conditions. What happens if you’re not one of those types of people? What about those who really don’t care much about overclocking, or those that much prefer an SFF or HTPC style system? Your choices are pretty limited when it comes to choosing a CPU cooler that is quiet and yet performs well and one that’s high quality. Noctua has a solution for you now, they’ve ventured into making coolers made for more cramped systems, and they’ve brought all of their knowledge and skills from making enthusiast style coolers to do this so you can expect a top-notch product . They’ve come out with two of these coolers, one of which I have for review today called the NH-L9i, where the ‘I’ in the name stands for Intel, the other cooler is the NH-L9a which is for AMD CPUs specifically. So I have the NH-L9i for review and I’ve put it up against a larger Noctua cooler for comparison as I was curious to see how well this tiny cooler would perform. So Read on…
This time, let’s test the NZXT Respire T20, a CPU cooler with a tower heatsink, 120 mm fan, one 8 mm and two 6 mm heatpipes. Check it out!
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