Top Tier CPU Air Coolers Q3 2015: 9-Way Roundup Review
by E. Fylladitakis on July 6, 2015 8:00 AM ESTThe Reeven Okeanos RC-1402
Reeven is a Taiwanese newcomer in the industry. Naturally, most people reading this probably never even heard the company name before today. The company was founded just over a year ago and currently only offers CPU coolers, fans and fan controllers. Reeven sent us their most powerful CPU cooler as well, the Okeanos (RC-1402).
The box that the Reeven comes supplied in is relatively small. Nevertheless, the protection appears adequate, with polyethylene foam protecting the cooler and the bundled items packed inside a cardboard box.
The bundle is a little crudely packed and virtually kept to a minimum. Reeven supplies only the hardware necessary for the mounting of the cooler, a single dose of thermal grease, wire clips for up to three cooling fans, speed reducers for the two provided fans and a leaflet with basic installation instructions.
Reeven supplies two cooling fans alongside with the Okeanos, one 120 mm and one 140 mm fan. Both fans have black frames and genista yellow blades. These are relatively simple models, with sleeve bearings, lacking fancy blades or vibration absorbers. There is one thing of note about these two fans though: they are ridiculously powerful, with the 140 mm and the 120 mm fan rated for a maximum speed of 1700 RPM and 1800 RPM respectively.
The Okeanos is a symmetric dual tower CPU cooler, with strangely narrow towers for its class. Although the difference is very small, the fins of each tower are not precisely geometrically symmetric, with the front side having three small and the rear side one long indentations. The top fin is a 1 mm thick aluminum cover with the company logo punched on it.
The wire fan installation clips do allow moving the front fan upwards in order to gain some RAM clearance - as long as the case is wide enough, of course. Installation-wise, they are a bit of a pain, as Reeven's approach is far too crude, with the wire clips just going straight into the fan holes and clipping onto the side of the fan.
Furthermore, the frame of the 120 mm fan just barely touches the extruded sides of the fins. It is very easy for the 120 mm fan to be installed with only one side on the extruded fins, increasing noise and reducing performance.
Even though the Okeanos initially looks very simple, the bottom of the cooler makes it very interesting. The base is split between a nickel-plated copper lower part and a steel top part, providing mechanical cohesion and retention. In between these two parts, there are six heatpipes, secured with a very generous amount of solder. The two central heatpipes are 8 mm thick, while the other four heatpipes are 6 mm thick, making this the only cooler with an asymmetric heatpipe configuration in our review. The contact surface is well polished and free of imperfections, yet not machined down to a perfect mirror finish.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
135 Comments
View All Comments
Drumsticks - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link
They did one of these round ups with the 212 Evo or + a while back, also involving high ends from Noctua (U14 and U12S I believe). They found that it doesn't quite match up, but I know it got a mention for exceptional performance for cheap. I think it falls behind more in noise than performance.It definitely would have been interesting to see it in here, but nevertheless, thanks for the review!
kmmatney - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link
I usually undervolt the fan a little - takes care iof any noise issues.Arnulf - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link
+1Nagorak - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link
I would have also liked to have a "decent" CPU cooler like that included, as well as the stock Intel/AMD HSF. It's great seeing how these coolers stack up to one another, but it doesn't truly quantify how much of an improvement you're getting over a cheap alternative, or the stock fan. For the record, I haven't run with a stock fan on any main PC I've owned in the past 15 years, but I would be curious to see how much I'm actually gaining.Araemo - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link
Especially given the raw value of the Hyper 212 Evo at $30, it may get within a degree or two of some of these for half the price or less... which is why my last build had the Hyper 212+ (It's been a few years) - I could have gained maybe 5C by spending 4 times as much.. which didn't seem worth it to me.TheJian - Tuesday, July 7, 2015 - link
AGREED. I have one, and at $29.95 from newegg just a few months ago on sale it was an AWESOME deal. i4790k can do massive oc's with it and even at full load is not terribly annoying with my 5850 causing most noise when gaming. This is still a top seller and for good reason.LittleLeo - Thursday, July 9, 2015 - link
Since its about the most popular cooler for gamers that would have been nice.jay401 - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link
I'm actually really glad to see this article, it's been ages since I've seen a good CPU air cooler roundup and sockets have changed several times over the years so it's nice to know what works well these days.jmke - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link
air cooling has plenty much run into a wall; heatpipes to copper base, aluminum fins on the heatpipes, put 140mm or 120mm fan... there is not a lot of wiggle room, so performance of those that follow this recipe is very close.differentiators now for most part are: socket compatibility, price, installation method. Raw performance/noise is no longer the focus imho if you want a successful product
meacupla - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link
It's not so much socket compatibility, so much as how compatible you can make your heatsink against mobos that have poor design choices.Although not as common on mATX and larger boards, mITX suffers a lot from this, because manufacturers attach fragile bits onto the back of the mobo, near the CPU socket, that interfere with the mounting bracket. Either that, or the CPU socket is placed too close to the PCIe, etc.
That Reeven Okeanos is something I haven't seen since Athlon 64 days, which are heatsinks paired with a stupidly loud fan. Look, if I wanted a heatsink with stupidly loud fan, I would buy an amazing heatsink or watercooler first, then attach the stupidly loud fan to that, instead of some mediocre heatsink with a mediocre fan.