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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Peichen - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link
I expect many R9 Fury X users are shopping for large air-cooler now as they have to give up their AIO CPU-cooler to Fury.BTW, I really wish you added a Hyper 212X as reference.
meacupla - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link
You could just buy a case like the Fractal Design Define S, which could fit two separate 120mm CLLC in the front, allowing both to get fresh air.Flunk - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link
I'm a bit disappointed that you didn't comment on the install process on any of the heatsinks. I recently bought a Dark Rock Pro 3 and while I love how quiet it is and the temps are actually lower than the Corsair Hydro H80 it replaced, the install process requires you to screw the heatsink in from the back of the motherboard. That and the size of the supplied backplate made the heatsink install more difficult that is really necessary.If you buy a Dark Rock 3 Pro I recommend removing the motherboard from the case entirely and installing it by flipping the heatsink upside down and balancing the motherboard on top of it in the correct position. This makes it fairly easy to screw in. But if you are using a normal thermal paste you might need to put it on the heatsink instead of the CPU heatspreader. I use IC Diamond and that stuff is so thick that it just stuck there upside down for long enough to finish mounting the thing.
meacupla - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link
Yeah, this is actually quite important. Noctua's mounting brackets are, by far, one of the easiest to work with.'nar - Tuesday, July 7, 2015 - link
I never gave it much thought. Installation is such a small concern to me, maybe I do this more than most, price and performance are preferable. That said, I still think Noctua's mounting can be improved, it seems unnecessarily complicated to me. First off, you really do need to replace the plastic bracket, there's no way around that. But secondly, why include a 140mm screw driver? Why not make the screws 140mm taller? Then you can just use a common screw driver, even a stubby or a pocket knife. And make them captive so they do not fall out and you do not need to line them up. These will certainly add to the cost due to extra engineering time and unique screws.Beany2013 - Wednesday, July 8, 2015 - link
Because the 140mm screwdriver:A: Is cheaper than re-engineering the entire product
B: long screws are *very* easy to cross-thread due to the extra sideways torque you can apply when inserting them.
I *do* like the Noctua setup system. It's strong, comprehensive, and lets be honest, you only do it once. I'm pretty sure that any gotchas with installation were caught in the descriptions of each cooler, too.
der - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link
WOOOO!golemB - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link
For the Macho Zero especially, I'd want to see the tests conducted (additionally) in a vertical motherboard orientation (as you'd have in most tower cases), since convection may have an effect on performance. It may also reveal differences in fan noise due to bearings rubbing more or less on different surfaces.'nar - Tuesday, July 7, 2015 - link
Not likely. Convection is slow. Any fans will blow away convection currents. Besides, orientation is strictly a "case by case" basis and beyond the scope of an empirical HSF comparison.Fan noise due to orientation may be good to check for though. I doubt it will be any different, if it is, the aberration should be noted.
flashbacck - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link
wow, cpu cooler roundup! It seems so rare to see these nowadays.