Top Tier CPU Air Coolers Q3 2015: 9-Way Roundup Review
by E. Fylladitakis on July 6, 2015 8:00 AM ESTThe Raijintek Tisis
Raijintek is yet another new European company, founded in 2013. For a company this new, Raijintek is retailing a fair number of products, which are thirteen coolers, four cases and several fans, with the company now expanding to peripherals and PSUs. The Tisis is Raijintek's most recent and advanced CPU cooler, which was originally baptized "Nemesis" but it was renamed due to a naming collision with another company's similar product.
The Tisis is supplied in a reasonably sized cardboard box with strong black/red artwork on it, focused around a picture of the cooler itself. Inside the box everything is well packed and the cooler is protected inside a polyethylene foam shell. Despite the obviously very rough time our sample had during its shipping to us, everything inside the box was unscathed.
Raijintek kept the bundle to the minimum of things required. Aside from the hardware and thermal grease necessary for the mounting of the cooler and a long L-type Philips PH2 screwdriver, nothing else is provided. It is however noteworthy to mention that there are no wire clips for the fans as this is the only cooler in this roundup review that is using rubber mounts instead.
There are two 140 mm fans provided inside the package, both with a red frame and white blades. There is nothing prominent about the fans, with the exception of the partially jagged blades. The OEM is recognizable and is PelHong Technology, a Chinese manufacturer. Both fans are identical, have engines with sleeve bearings and a relatively low maximum speed of just 1.000 RPM.
The Raijintek Tisis is a very large asymmetric dual tower cooler, with the towers completely different from each other. The fins of the front tower are larger and both of their fan-facing sides are jagged, while the fins of the rear tower are smaller and their sides are completely straight. Furthermore, the fins of the front tower have folded sides, effectively forming a wind tunnel that prevents the air from exiting from the sides. Openings for the rubber mounts of the cooling fans can be clearly seen. This method is a little more convenient than wire clips but it also prevents the adjustment of the fan's height, removing the possibility to raise the front fan a little bit to increase the RAM modules clearance.
The copper base and heatpipes of the Tisis are nickel-plated and polished, especially the contact surface that has been machined down to a perfect mirror finish. Five thick 8 mm heatpipes go through the relatively small base of the Tisis and expand to both fin arrays. For the installation of the cooler, the middle fan needs to be removed, as there is no other way for the screwdriver to reach the base of the cooler.
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AssBall - Tuesday, July 7, 2015 - link
No it isn't. The mounting mechanisms on these higher priced sinks are, as, had you read the article, solid. If you are missing an arm and wanted to mount a 100$ heat sink in your 25$ case, you might care about the weight, in which case, the manufacturer's website is a one armed lazy click away.Schickenipple - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link
Cheaper still, at under $50, is the ZALMAN CNPS9500A. I use it on almost every build due to it's all-copper design and razor thin fins. I can keep the fan on the lowest speed without my Core i7 going over 40 Deg. C under load. It's silent no matter what I'm doing.My only complaint is that the fan is not PWM. Quibbles.
meacupla - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link
The only thing I haven't liked about Zalman, is that the fans they use in their heatsinks aren't exactly the quietest and are usually not easily swappable. At least, not when compared against manufacturers like Scythe and Noctua.Nfarce - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link
I have the 9700LED variant of that design for my old Core 2 Duo E8400 build. It does okay for medium overclocks (running my 3.0GHz E8400 at 3.4GHz), but that was about it. And considering I paid $55 for it back in 2009 when I built that rig (about $60 in today's money), it wasn't exactly a cheap option. I would have spent a little more for a better cooler so I could get a higher overclock, but the new Sandy Bridge chipset was coming out soon and I decided to just keep it as a backup rig.Eidigean - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link
The conversion from Euro to Dollar for the Reeven Okeanos is incorrect. 60€ != $54. 60€ == $66. I think you divided instead of multiplied.GeekTech - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link
I just want to mention that the Cryorig R1 Ultimate CPU Cooler that you listed and said was currently available only through a foreign store registered in Amazon.com that ships from Korea is currently being sold at PC Case Gear here in Australia for AU$89 (US$66.82).Link: https://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=pro...
letmepicyou - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link
I would have liked to see the Noctua's real arch nemesis included in this shootout, the Thermalright Silver Arrow. Crushes the Macho Zero. I have a Silver Arrow on my i7 4790k running seti@home, and it owns.Innokentij - Tuesday, July 7, 2015 - link
The Phanteks PH-TC14PЕ is a better cooler using noctunas own fans on it and even better if u add AF140 fans to it . Is why i took it over the Noctua for myself.http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/coolers/display/n...
UltraWide - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link
There is an updated version of the noctua: http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=productview&...Eidigean - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link
It's not so much as updated, as it is an off-center version of the same NH-D15. I would need the NH-D15S that you linked to on my MB as the former would hit my GPU in the first slot. I was considering modifying the D15 to move it up and away until I saw the D15S. A good link none the less.