Cooling

Noctua's NH-C14 is a big, beastly follow-up to the popular NH-C12P top-down CPU cooler. Armed with a bigger fin stack and two 14 cm fans, the C14 is the first down-blower cooler that truly competes against the against the formidable side-blowing towers that have taken over in recent years.

The Thermalright Shaman is a massive eight heatpipe GPU heatsink with an equally imposing 14cm fan. Taking up three extra expansion slots and weighing a total of 680 grams, this monster should have no trouble quietly cooling a high-end graphics card. We check it out on a 215W GPU.

The Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme Rev.C and the Arctic Cooling Freezer Xtreme Rev.2 are two divergent different approaches to extreme CPU cooling that manage to remain in the same basic "side-blowing fan on a tower of fins joined to the base by heatpipes" design dominating the field. Is there a winner? Yes, and its by a lot more than a nose.

Accelero Xtreme Plus is an unapologetic three-fan monster GPU cooler that Arctic Cooling claims can tackle cards drawing up to 250W. It may be the VGA heatsink noise-adverse gaming enthusiasts have been waiting for.

The GELID Icy Vision is an impressive GPU cooler equipped with 5 copper heatpipes, a sizable fin stack, dual 92 mm fans, and compatibility with some of the hottest graphics cards on the market including the Radeon HD 5870 and GeForce GTX 480.

A pair of Scythe heatsinks battle for a place amongst the best CPU coolers. The Ninja 3 seeks to bring prestige back to its family, while the sharp Scythe Yasya attempts to cut up the competition.

Two low profile CPU heatsinks go under the microscope, the Gelid Slim Silence and Prolimatech Samuel 17. The Slim Silence is a 1U heatsink for use with lower power processors, while the Samuel 17 is high performance cooler taking aim at the Scythe Big Shuriken.

The Phenom II AM3 stock heatpipe cooler currently shipping with AMD's 125W quad/hex core processors is pitted against the older, but larger AM2+ model. Is either heatsink worthwhile for quiet cooling?

A pair of Intel LGA1366 stock coolers take to the pitch, one a traditional radial down-blowing heatsink, the other surprisingly a tower heatsink complete with 4 heatpipes and a large LED fan. Just how good are these coolers, and do they hold a candle to smaller aftermarket offerings?

The Gelid Silent Spirit and Scythe Samurai ZZ are a pair of modestly sized top-down CPU coolers with 92 mm fans. While neither will win any performance awards, their size is an asset in cases too small for large heatsinks with 120/140 mm fans.

The Scythe Grand Kama Cross is a down-blowing CPU cooler featuring a large 140mm SlipStream fan, 4 copper heatpipes twisted to form a "X" formation, and an relatively small stack of aluminum fins. Does it have what it takes to compete with the big tower heatsinks?

The Titan Fenrir and Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus are CPU heatsinks with direct touch/contact heatpipes. The Fenrir with its thicker heatpipes and larger body seems to have the advantage, but the slimmer Hyper 212 Plus may be the David to its Goliath.

The Corsair Hydro H50 is an all-in-one CPU water cooler with a waterblock, reservoir and pump integrated into a single piece at one end, and a radiator that mounts to a single 120 mm fan placement at the other. It's a hassle-free introduction into water cooling... but is it better than a high performance air cooled tower heatsink?

The Prolimatech Armageddon hopes to capitalize on the greater airflow of a 140mm fan with a narrow, wide body. Its a simple design compared to that of the Coolermaster V8, with its sprawling jumble of heatpipes and fins. One approach rises near the top, while the other sinks close to the bottom.

The first heatsink/fan from Thermalright spinoff Cogage goes up against the Quiet version of the Zalman CNPS10X line on our i7-1366 test platform. Results are surprising.