Battle of The CPU Stock Coolers! 7x Intel vs 5x AMD, plus an EVO 212
by E. Fylladitakis on July 22, 2016 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- CPUs
- AMD
- Intel
- Cooler Master
- Cooler
The Intel Coolers
We have seven Intel coolers to test for the means of this review. Six are stock coolers accompanying processors that the company has released during the past decade and the seventh is the Intel BXTS15A (TS15A) that the company recently released as an aftermarket upgrade.
| Vendor | Cooler | Common Bundle | Core | Fins | Fan (mm) |
Mass (g) |
| Intel | D75716-002 | Socket 775 Celerons | Alu | Alu | ≈80 | 118 |
| C25704-002 | Socket 775, P4 6x0 | Cu | Alu | ≈80 | 132 | |
| E97378-001 | Socket 1155 Intel i5 | Cu | Alu | ≈80 | 146 | |
| E97379-001 | Socket 1155 Intel i3 | Alu | Alu | ≈80 | 92 | |
| D60188-001 | Socket 775, C2D E8x00 | Cu | Alu | ≈80 | 419 | |
| E31964-001 | Socket 1366 i7-X | Cu | Cu/Alu | ≈100 | 435 | |
| BXTS15A | Aftermarket, ≈$30 | Cu | Alu | ≈80 | 362 |
The Intel C25704-002 and Intel D75716-002 probably are the oldest coolers in this review. These were usually accompanying Socket 775 Intel Celeron and Pentium 4 “Prescott” processors several years ago. They are of nearly identical size and very similar in terms of design, with the exception that the D75716-002 has an aluminum core and a less powerful fan.
Intel C25704-002 and D57516-002
The Intel D60188-001 is essentially an overgrown C25704-002. Intel has been receiving a lot of criticism back in the day for having noisy stock coolers, therefore they nearly doubled the mass of the C25704 and used a significantly less powerful fan. The Intel D60188-001 usually was the stock cooler accompanying high performance Core 2 Duo processors.
Intel D60188-001
The E97378-001 and the E97379-001 look almost identical and their ID numbers are very close, but major differences can be discerned when the coolers are turned upside down. Aside from the E97378 having a copper core, the E97379 has significantly lower mass and straight fins, hinting the use of a more powerful fan. Bent pins cause significant turbulence at high airflows and unnecessarily increase the cooler’s noise output.
Intel E97378-001 and E97379-001
Intel’s first attempt to design a high performance cooler was probably the Intel E31964-001, the stock cooler of socket 1366 i7 Extreme processors. They kept the core design the same but replaced half of the aluminum fins with copper fins and used a semi-transparent fan with blue LEDs. The mix of aluminum and copper fins creates a “flower” visual effect similar to that first seen on Zalman CNPS coolers nearly two decades ago. The straight fins and very high current rating of the fan hint that the Intel E31964-001 is not designed with silence in mind.
Intel E31964-001
The Intel BXTS15A is an aftermarket cooler sold by Intel as an upgrade for socket 1151 CPUs but will also fit on older 1150/1156 processors. A mere glimpse on the cooler reveals that it is just an oversized version of the company’s stock coolers, mostly just much taller than what they have been supplying alongside with the CPUs. It is almost identical to the E31964-001, but has only aluminum fins and they are taller. It also has straight fins and a very strong fan, hinting that this will not be a silent cooler either.
Intel BXTS15A
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TrantaLocked - Monday, November 27, 2017 - link
Lining up the pins should be super easy just from above, and you can feel and see if the pins have dropped through each hole by paying attention to elevation of each corner of the heatsink.JonnyDough - Monday, August 1, 2016 - link
I have no issue with getting them to work, but they still suck. I like AMD's retention clip, no tools needed. The only issue is when it's in a tight mid-tower case or has a heatsink butted up against it. I don't like needing tools to seat or unseat a heatsink, but if a long standard screwdriver was the only tool needed to make it simpler and quick I'd be all for it. Too many coolers mount one direction (up or rear blowing) and are too difficult to either seat, unseat, or both.mikato - Thursday, July 28, 2016 - link
Yes, those push pins are terrible.FriendlyUser - Friday, July 22, 2016 - link
Excellent, very useful review! People really need to know if they have to budget a cooler or not and what improvement to expect.Thanks!
BrokenCrayons - Friday, July 22, 2016 - link
I recently built a system around an Athlon X4 860K that shipped with AMD's FHSA7015B. I had some reservations about using the boxed cooler, but apathy won out in the end so locked it down over the chip and forgot about it. It does what its supposed to do and at this point, I just can't rationalize going through the trouble of pulling out the thumbscrew on the side panel, removing it, and installing something else. It's not worth my time so for someone like me an OEM boxed cooler is good enough.cowbutt - Friday, July 22, 2016 - link
It'd be interesting to see the results for the copper-cored 150W TDP Intel BXTS13A for socket 2011-3 CPUs (e.g. i7-5xxx). When I got mine about 18 months ago, it was about £15, so about half the price of a Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo in the UK. If it's anything like the BXTS15A, that seems pretty reasonable for the performance it offers.evilspoons - Friday, July 22, 2016 - link
It's actually remarkable how many similar-but-different coolers Intel has sold. I went through about 15 of them from a pile of stuff at work and only found two that were the same, meaning I had 14 different heatsink/fan combinations. (FWIW some were almost the same but with different fans, but the fans were substantially different in power rating...)Note to future self: if chucking aside Intel stock heatsinks for potential future re-use, label what CPU the came with to save yourself a headache.
dave_the_nerd - Friday, July 22, 2016 - link
Wow. The stock cooler on my i5 really _is_ crap.Ratman6161 - Friday, July 22, 2016 - link
Maybe it isn't. If your system is running fine and you were not having any problems with it, reading an article doesn't suddenly make it crap :)dave_the_nerd - Friday, July 22, 2016 - link
It's been fine for three years. But I can get temps up into the 80s if I'm running Prime95.To futz with it, or not to futz with it. That is the question. :-)