Battle of The CPU Stock Coolers! 7x Intel vs 5x AMD, plus an EVO 212

The AMD Coolers

Five AMD-specific coolers are going to be tested in this review, four being stock coolers that accompany AMD’s CPUs and one being a cost-effective cooler from Cooler Master.

The first AMD cooler that we are having a look at is the 1A213LQ00 that accompanies AM1 “Kabini” core CPUs. It is by far the smallest heatsink of this review and of very simple design, with a full aluminum body, a tiny circular base and a small 50 mm fan. As a matter of fact, it is so small that it can be easily mistaken for a motherboard’s chipset cooler. Kabini CPUs however have very low power ratings, which makes this small cooler more than enough for them.

AMD 1A213LQ00

AMD’s FHSA7015B is perhaps the most widely used stock CPU cooler in existence, as the company has been supplying it alongside with tens of CPUs across nine different platforms (FM1, AM3+, AM3, AM2+, AM2, 1207, 940, 939 and 754 sockets). It is a rather simple design entirely made out of aluminum, with a square base and straight fins extending to all four sides of the cooler.

AMD FHSA7015B

Cooler Master’s HK8-00005 is actually the stock cooler supplied with AMD’s high end “Godavari” FM2+ CPUs. It can be bought as an aftermarket cooler for just $14 and should fit all of AMD’s sockets/CPUs since socket 754. It is a relatively small cooler, about the same size as the FHSA7015B, using a similar 70 mm fan, with an aluminum base and fins. The main difference is that there are two heatpipes running across the base of the cooler, transferring thermal energy from the core directly to the edges of the fins.

AMD/Cooler Master HK8-00005

The AMD AV-Z7UB408003 was perhaps the first “advanced” cooler that came supplied alongside a CPU. It was first seen supplied as the stock CPU of AMD’s Phenom X4 9600 processors back in 2008 and can still fit on the latest FM2+ processors. It has large aluminum fins attached to a solid copper base. Four heatpipes run through the copper base, transferring thermal energy directly up to the center and edges of the fins. The short fan is embedded inside the fins in order to reduce the overall height of the cooler.

AMD AV-Z7UB408003

The AMD FX-8370 “Piledriver” processors come with the first stock cooler that has been baptized with a nickname rather than a series of digits and letters - the Wraith. AMD’s Wraith cooler looks almost identical to the AV-Z7UB408003, and its core design is, but everything is larger. The Wraith has larger fins and thicker heatpipes, with a full size 90 mm fan mounted on top of the cooler. At least for the metal part of the cooler, it almost looks as if someone took the AV-Z7UB408003’s schematic and simply pressed the “scale” button, increasing everything by about 25%. Despite the increase in size, the fins are not as dense and the copper base is a little thinner, resulting to a reduction in raw mass. Although the core design may be the same, the significantly superior fan should significantly improve the performance of the Wraith over that of the AV-Z7UB408003 that it is based upon.

AMD Wraith (125W)