3-Way Low Profile CPU Cooling Shoot-Out: Reeven, Phanteks, & Noctua
by E. Fylladitakis on January 18, 2017 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Noctua
- Phanteks
- Cooler
- Reeven
Testing Results, Low Fan Speed (7 Volts)
Switching things up, let's take a look at cooling performance with the fans brought down to 7 Volts, for a look at performance with quieter operation.
As you'd expect, the average thermal resistance rises with the reduced airflow. The Noctua is still in a league of its own here due to its size. Meanwhile the Phanteks struggles some, as it comes in at the bottom of this chart.
| Core Temperature, Constant Thermal Load (Low Fan Speed) |
Core temperatures still look good, though. With the Noctua well in the lead, the other two coolers are only about 19C over ambient at 60W, which bodes particularly well for quiet computing at stock clocks.
While we had to skip two of our highest wattage tests here - these low profile coolers simply aren't meant for highly overclocked & overvolted processors - ultimately the results from our tests show that all of the coolers are sufficient for their jobs. Though smaller, neither the Phanteks or Reeven coolers would have any issue cooling a modern processor running at stock speed, even in low airflow environments. Again, the Reeven Steropes has the advantage over the Phanteks TC12LS in terms of raw thermal performance, but the latter is significantly quieter, reaching virtually inaudible noise levels.
As for the Noctua NH-C14S, with its fans running at low speed, the performance gap between the NH-C14S and the other horizontal coolers widened greatly, to the point that it would be unfair to make any comparisons at all. The NH-C14S is only comparable to large tower coolers, thermally outperforming even very large coolers with much greater mass. The noise output of the NF-A14 fan under these conditions is very low and should be barely noticeable in a very quiet room.
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nafs_asp - Tuesday, January 24, 2017 - link
Big Shuriken is probably the best you can cram into a Node 202. I have a 6600k at 4.5GHz in mine, and the Big Shuriken keeps it under 70C during x264 and Aida64.Brainonska511 - Tuesday, January 24, 2017 - link
I have a Cryorig C7 in my mITX system on a regular i5-6600. I could have gone with something taller, as there is room my Corsair 250D, but what was really appealing to me is the fact that the C7 fits completely within the socket area. Some mITX boards are pretty packed and some users reported that other, larger horizontal coolers could block the PCI-E slot or hit other components on the board.creed3020 - Thursday, January 19, 2017 - link
Look no further than a Cryorig C1, it needs 74mm of clearance so see what you can do with your case options. I have one and it works wonders on an overlocked Intel Core i5-4690K @ 4GHz inside a Silverstone RVZ-01B.YukaKun - Wednesday, January 18, 2017 - link
How does the "The Reeven Steropes RC-1206b" stack to the "CM GeminII M4"?They look very similar and the M4 does quite a good job with my old A8-3500 inside a Thermaltake SD200.
Cheers!
creed3020 - Thursday, January 19, 2017 - link
Be very wary of the Cooler Master GeminII M4 as its base has poor CPU contact. The base is not flat and just has the heat pipes squished and exposed to the CPU leaving air gaps between the CPU heatspreader and heatsink base. I know this because I recently bought one for an HTPC with an AMD APU and haven't been very impressed with that aspect. The thermal performance is better than the stock heatsink and acoustics are excellent but the product is not as well engineered as it could be for $45.YukaKun - Friday, January 20, 2017 - link
That is kind of why I am asking. Although I have no complaints on how it's performing, I'd like to know if I should keep it or consider a newer/different HSF for my upgrade.Thanks for the input as well :D
Cheers!
LiviuTM - Wednesday, January 18, 2017 - link
It's Celsius.80-wattHamster - Wednesday, January 18, 2017 - link
Not the subject of this article, but what stands out to me is the performance of AMD's Wraith. It's so close to the 212 EVO in every metric (except fan speed) that one can't help but conclude that AMD used the EVO as its benchmark during development. And very nearly hit it. On a bundled cooler.wolfemane - Wednesday, January 18, 2017 - link
You really should have included the Scythe BIG Shuriken 2 Rev. B cooler to your group as it's also a horizontal cooler. The company claims a max TDP of 130w on 115x CPUs. Noctua only claims 95w max TDP on 115x CPUs for the Noctua NH-C14S. Would have been nice to see how this compares.Spunjji - Wednesday, January 18, 2017 - link
Based on my experience (quietly cooling an i5-2300 in an extremely small HTPC case barely bigger than the ITX board dimensions) it would clobber all of these except for the Noctua, and it will fit where the Noctua will not.