So.... i finished, kindoff, i did all the testing, aside from the hearing session, sadly both days had rain in the night making not so quiet or at least the levels that i wanted to test, so maybe some other day ill do it, for now its postpone, as i cant do today nor a weekday because of work, but will see.
First let me say, all the coolers are really good coolers, its not like there is one that its not worth it or that loses severely, all of these coolers will cool most of today's CPUs fine. But do remember, the testing has been done on a delided i7 8086k with custom ihs + liquid metal, this dropped its load max temps around 15C, also take into account that the CPU is only running @ 4.3hz on Aida64, this is intentional or i wouldn't have been able to test lower rpms to compare between fans/heatsinks. So lets go with each cooler into what they excel into,
Noctua NH-D15s Imo its the best cooler that was tested, but best in what... well its the one that netted the lowest temps and if you use two fans, it can even cool at very low rpms very well. While its an expensive cooler as it is, its very versatile in terms that it can do low and high rpms, downsides its size and weight, in some scenarios you wont be able to mount the frontal fans, specially if you don't go with standard size ram, still this is my top pick of the bunch.
Noctua NH-U12A I was disappointed at first, as it struggle with low rpm, but its not meant for it, if you see the charts on high rpms it matches or gets close to the NH-D15s on 50/100% PWM, given that the rpms are different, the noise imo its comparable (take it with a grain of salt). The cooler does need the two fans, specially at low rpms, with a single fan was the only cooler that didnt finish the 30min min test out of me fearing it will hit 100c+. The problem with it is that its expensive, more than NH-D15s and HR22, but i do think it has a place/use, for a smaller cooler it cools well on higher rpms, and the Mugen5 cant touch it here, not even with the same fans, so if i was to air cool a 8700k/9900k or alike, and i couldnt fit a NH-d15s or dont like big coolers, then this is as good as it gets.
Thermalright HR22 This is a cooler that many avoid due to its size, but thats whats gives its place in the market, its by far the best low rpm performer of the coolers that were tested, specially with 1 fan win everything, but the NH-D15s performs well here with 2 fans. As with the Mugen5, the HR22 is a widly spread fin design allows this low airflow efficency, but gets better because of its size, it outpeforms the Mugen easily, so you are very likely to be able to plan a fan curve much lower than any other cooler that was tesed, the downside are two, size/weight and the price.... the LeGrandMacho is as expensive as the NH-D15 (none s, that comes with 2 fans) and the chart shows with 2 fans it outperforms on low rpm operation, but as with the Mugen5, it has diminishing returns on high rpm operation, while the NH-D15 perform very well here. So its a niche product, this cooler imo should be priced at $60 to be called the best for us, but at $80 is hard to recommend over the NH-D15, now if you are like me and want the S version because of the PCIe slots, then HR22 picks up its value, as you will need to add another NF-A15 to perform similar to the HR22, taking it to $100, more if you dislike Noctua colors and end up with Chroma NF-A15, where the LeGrandMacho sits at $80 and comes with an attractive and good performing fan. For people wanting more cooling than what the Mugen5 gives and want to remain on low rpms and cant use a twin tower with twin fans (like none standard height memory), this is as good as it gets.
Sythe Mugen5 RevB I'm going to call this the jewl of the test, it didn't win any but did well in all, and it cost almost half of all the coolers that were tested, and it will remain my top recommendation for SPCR users for its performance/value. The Mugen5 is a cooler that its not meant for high rpm fans, its fin spacing is wider than U12A, more similar to a mini HR22, and thus the test reflect this, on low rpms it wins over the NH-U12A (true on 1 and 2 fan), but once it goes into above 1200rpms it struggles and U12A performs better. But you see, Scythe included a 1300rpm for this reason, there are diminishing return on using a high rpm fan on this cooler, and shines a lot on its range of operation. It was interesting to see how well it perform on the 15% compared to U12A, but the same can be said where it pulls ahead U12A on 2100rpms, but because of what we try to achieve here on SPCR, the Mugen5 imo its a better buy, not only because of its price, but also we are very unlikely to use a cooler above 1200rpms. Now if price is not a concern, then both the HR22 and NH-D15s perform much better, this leads me to the begging, its a great cooler that perform well in most tests, specially at low rpms, but what makes it so good its price/performance.
Is it worth buying the NF-A12x25 for the Mugen5? depends, initially i would say no, the Kamaflex performs well and the range of operation of the fan matches the ideal operation of the Mugen5 design, remember the only thing that the Mugen5 wins is on value, adding a $30 fan will place it in the NH-D15/HR22 price range. I would recommend to start with the kamaFlex, see from there if you want a quieter fan (NF-A12x25 under the same rpms is quieter, to what i remember around 100rpm or so nets same noise subjectively), another scenario would be in case you want lower rpm operation, the kamaflex can't be stopped even at 0% PWM it nets 400rpms (at least on gigabyte PWM bios fan control) so if you wish to stop the CPU fan under certain temps then get the NF-A12x25, or another scenario that i would suggest is if your kamaflex is showing its age and you want to change it, i would make the effort toward the NF-A12x25.
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