Top Tier CPU Air Coolers Q3 2015: 9-Way Roundup Review
by E. Fylladitakis on July 6, 2015 8:00 AM ESTThe SilentiumPC Grandis XE1236
SilentiumPC is a Polish company that is fairly well known in Europe, yet with virtually no presence in the North American markets. The company was founded in 2007, aiming to provide a wide variety of cooling and case solutions at competitive prices. For the means of this review, SilentiumPC provided us with the Grandis XE1236, which currently is the best cooler the company produces.
The Grandis is supplied in an aesthetically plain but effective cardboard box. There is nothing of note regarding the appearance of the packaging, as the only artwork is a picture of the cooler itself. It does offer good shipping protection though, with the cooler protected inside a clear plastic shell and the bundled items grouped in secondary cardboard boxes.
With the company focused on minimizing the costs, we did not expect the bundle of the Grandis to be grand. Nevertheless, besides the necessary mounting hardware and wire clips for three fans, SilentiumPC provides a tube of quality Pactum PT-1 thermal compound and a Y 4-pin fan power splitter. A small wrench tool is also provided, necessary for the installation of the cooler.
The Grandis is supplied with two 120 mm cooling fans. Both fans are mechanically and electrically identical, with black solid frames and tinted black blades. They have been rebranded and it is difficult to recognize their OEM. Their electrical specifications, speed and sleeving type match the Power Logic PL12S12L, yet the acoustic ratings are worlds apart.
The Grandis XE1236 is a symmetric dual tower CPU cooler, with relatively narrow towers for its class. The fins of both towers are perfectly symmetric as well, meaning that both their front and rear sides are identical, mostly straight with shallow indentations near their center. SilentiumPC died the top fin black, obviously for aesthetic purposes only, but it does not cover the copper heatpipes.
Up to three 120 mm cooling fans can be installed on the Grandis, using the provided wire clips. The wire clips are strangely shaped and very wide, expanding above and below the cooling fans. This makes them flimsy and prevents the movement of the front fan upwards to offer clearance for the RAM modules, if necessary. The center fan will have to be removed for the installation of the cooler, as there are no holes for a screwdriver. Do note that a Philips PH2 screwdriver with a shank longer than 145 mm is necessary for the installation of the Grandis, which is not supplied.
The base of the Grandis XE1236 is about as simple as the rest of the cooler is. It is split into two parts: the narrow lower copper part serves as the contact surface and the aluminum/steel top part provides mechanical cohesion and retention. Six 6 mm copper heatpipes expand from the base of the cooler to either tower on both sides, evenly spaced at the right and the left half of each tower. In order to keep the costs down, SilentiumPC did not plate the copper parts of the Grandis. The quality of the contact surface is disappointing, not because it has not been polished at all but because there are multiple machining marks visible with the naked eye and easily feelable by touch.
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TheJian - Tuesday, July 7, 2015 - link
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6830/cpu-air-cooler-...It is far more impressive than you give it credit for. I easily hit >5ghz on this fan with i4790K.
Shadow7037932 - Tuesday, July 7, 2015 - link
If you're going to extreme OCing, why the hell aren't you on custom water cooling or Dice/LN2?Nfarce - Wednesday, July 8, 2015 - link
Because where I am in overclock, the best air keeps up with the best closed loop kit cooling for far less money.tabascosauz - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link
What farce said is true. At high voltages and overclocks, the 212 EVO breaks down and the dual towers begin to shine.DanNeely - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link
Which with simulated thermal loads ranging from 60-340W should have been made apparent in the course of testing.I would hope and expect that most if not all of these coolers would out perform it, especially at higher loads. But as a de-facto standard budget cooler for people who want something better than Intel's I think it should've been added to the matrix to show how much better these bigger ones performed. A stock Intel cooler should've been included as well for the same purposes (at least at the lower loads; no sense risking burning the test setup by trying to broil 340W through it). Including a mainstream reference point is especially important in this case because E. Fylladitakis's synthetic test load means that we can't cross reference his results with those found elsewhere.
SUpstone - Thursday, October 29, 2015 - link
Totally agree - to get the full picture and to aid comparability with other tests the reference points of the Intel stock cooler (free) and CM 212 EVO (£25) should be included.Flunk - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link
If you buy one of those things on sale I've seen them as low as $30, which if you don't need better cooling, is a good deal. The reason the Hyper 212 EVO is popular is that it's cheaper than most of it's competition and easily available. They're good enough for moderate overclocking on a 1150-series chip so they do fit the bill for a lot of people. Something being popular doesn't make it bad.Pastuch - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link
I have 2 of the original Hyper 212 (Non-evo) on two different I5-2500Ks that have been running super quiet at 4.4ghz for the last 4+ years. No coil whine or bearing degradation on the fans. I paid $20 for each Hyper 212 Evo. The value for the money is amazing. It's an excellent quality reliable product and it's easy to install.I paid $220 for my I5-2500k, 20$ for the Hyper 212 Evo, and $70 for 8gbs of PC 1333 in February of 2011. At 4.4ghz, it's still within 5% as fast as any CPU on the market. Sandy Bridge FOREVER! I'll keep buying video cards. You can waste your money on HSF upgrades for CPUs that become less important every day. DX12 is just going to make the CPU even less useful.
Pastuch - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link
Just to clarify, those are Canadian prices which makes them even more amazing. The new I5-K in Canada is almost $300! No thanks.northward - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link
Remember, the average exchange in 2011 was 1.011 (CAD to USD). It is presently 0.79 (CAD to USD). Assuming US/CAN price parity in 2011, that $220 cooler would cost ~$278, not that far behind the $284 i5 4690K.