Top Tier CPU Air Coolers Q3 2015: 9-Way Roundup Review
by E. Fylladitakis on July 6, 2015 8:00 AM ESTThe Cryorig R1 Ultimate
Cryorig is a company that popped literally out of nowhere in 2013. They claim to be a company founded by experts with previous experience at other well-known companies, who banded together to both make a name for themselves and to offer "the best of all worlds". The R1 Ultimate that we have here today is the largest, most powerful cooler that they currently manufacture.
We received the R1 Ultimate well packed in a large cubic cardboard box. Everything inside the box is well packed and the bundle is well presented. Cryorig supplies the necessary hardware for the installation of the cooler, a tube of quality thermal grease and a long shank L screwdriver tool. The screwdriver tool is necessary for the installation of the cooler, unless if there is a >170 mm shank Philips PH2 screwdriver available. They also provide a third set of wire clips, for the installation of a third cooling fan.
The Cryorig R1 Ultimate is a very large dual tower cooler. Plastic frames partially cover each tower and are used as supports for the two 140 mm cooling fans. The fans are preinstalled and removing them is not necessary for the installation of the cooler. Each of the two towers has two series of fins. The silver front half of each tower consists of 42 fins, the black rear half of 53 fins. The company claims that by reducing the spacing halfway across each tower, they can accelerate the air exhaust, forcing the hot air to exit the tower faster. It is a rather peculiar approach, as a uniform gap across the entire tower could achieve the same air backpressure/speed without the extra turbulence and noise that the transition will cause. Perhaps Cryorig's research showed that this approach somehow improves thermal performance, by either thinning the boundary layer or simply through higher turbulence flow.
No strange shapes or patterns here - the front of the towers is entirely straight, with Cryorig apparently thinking that trying to improve anything by shaping the intake side of the fins is a waste of resources. The rear of the fins forms a simple geometric pattern, not just to improve the aesthetics of the cooler but also to provide insertion points for the provided screwdriver, which needs to be inserted in the gaps between the center fan and the fins for the installation of the cooler.
Cryorig is using two 140 mm fans, rebranded to their own company logo. They appear to be the same as the XF140 fans that the company retails as well. Aside from the "high precision low noise" bearing that the specifications vaguely describe, not much can be found about the fans, other than that they have a maximum speed of 1300 RPM. According to the specifications of the R1 Ultimate, they are also rated at 23 dB(A). This however is a little misleading, as this is the rating of a single fan in standard test conditions (unrestricted) within an anechoic chamber, not of two fans installed on the cooler itself.
The copper base and heatpipes of the R1 Ultimate have been nickel plated to prevent oxidization, a common upgrade for high-end products. The contact surface is very smooth but not polished down to a perfect mirror finish. In order to save a little room and install a seventh heatpipe, Cryorig placed the seven heatpipes in a slight convex formation.
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'nar - Tuesday, July 7, 2015 - link
I know right? I was so looking forward to a W/C vs A/C comparison after an intro like that.Margalus - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link
why didn't you test these all with the same fan? Then we could see how the cooler performed independent of the included fans? Like the Thermalright, it comes with no fan, apparently you got a super quiet slow fan and put on there, but that isn't fair to Thermalright saying they are hotter, when it could be because it doesn't have the amount of air moving over the fins as others.Beany2013 - Wednesday, July 8, 2015 - link
Thermalright provided the fan, so they can't grumble at the results.trandoanhung1991 - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link
When you talk about ultimate cooling, you should've at least tested the True Spirit 140 Power Edition with a TY-143 fan, or the Silver Arrow SB-E Extreme. Those are the most interesting products from Thermalright, not the Macho Zero.Maybe as an addendum at some point? I'm very interested to see how the Silver Arrow and the 140 PE fare against the D15.
Impulses - Tuesday, July 7, 2015 - link
Apparently the Macho is what TR themselves chose to send AT, if the intro is accurate... Big /facepalm on their part. They probably have some of the best value coolers in the TRUE Spirits (I have the original Cogage version myself), and the Silver Arrow might've ranked up there with the Noctua and Phantek. The article did make me pretty curious about the latter tho, call me vain but the color choices are cool.Calculatron - Monday, July 6, 2015 - link
Thanks for doing a heatsink round-up. They are refreshing to see these days.It is a shame that Thermalright did not send in its top-tier performer. Then again, the Macho Zero is nothing to sneeze at. ~40C over ambient for a 340 watt load is still a good result. (Perhaps, instead, they could have thrown the TY143 performance fan instead? Har!)
siberus - Tuesday, July 7, 2015 - link
I actually wish they would have sent 2 of the current fans so we could see if push/pull could push it up a performance bracket.rrohbeck - Tuesday, July 7, 2015 - link
I'd like to see the measurements all with the same fan(s) - whatever is considered "the best" fan. That would give an indication of how much you could get out of the cooler with aftermarket fans.'nar - Tuesday, July 7, 2015 - link
I wish there was more review cross-over with water coolers, these two camps seem to be at odds with each other. They never seem to be compared effectively to each other, so it is difficult for consumers to determine the "best" cooler for themselves. With Noctua getting up to $93, there are water coolers out there for less. I bought my Noctua NH-D14 for $75 and thought that was high for a HSF.I strictly used air coolers until I got an AMD APU, among them are several Noctua models. It was apparent to me that this CPU, after a bit of easy O/C, got hot much too fast for an air cooler to absorb. It would crash after just 4 seconds of starting Tomb Raider and the cooling fins were still ambient temperature. I tried three coolers including the Noctua NH-D14. Fan speed did not matter as the rapid increase in temperature exceeded the heatsinks' ability to draw the heat off the CPU itself. I would guess that it take anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute for the heat to actually get to the fins, so if your heat sink cannot "sink" the heat all by itself, no fan, for a full minute, then it has inadequate heat transfer and no fan will fix that.
I installed a Corsair H100i and that works very well. I had previously thought that any cooler with less surface area would have less cooling performance, but I have found that if you cannot transfer the heat to the fins, they make no difference. I think a Corsair H60 would have been fine now. I heard that water coolers were "better" and more efficient, but nobody ever explains WHY.
From this experience at least, it appears that water coolers have better heat transfer performance. Fan speeds and fins are secondary to that, as they do not matter until the heat gets to them. If they get hot, then low speed fans can easily remove that heat as higher temperature differentials generally allow for greater heat transfer. If you run high-power and high-heat for a long time, then higher fan speeds help.
How quickly can your test bench ramp up in power? Was that tested? Was that considered? CPU's can hit maximum power in nanoseconds, and crash in milliseconds. Only the base of the HSF would see anything from that event. I think this test is more academic, and not very relevant in the real-world with actual CPU's. It only tests for maximum heat generation over time, like when running benchmarks, not the dynamic nature in which CPU's operate for most useful loads. But then, that's just my perspective.
Pissedoffyouth - Tuesday, July 7, 2015 - link
I agree with you. I think the heat transfer through heatpipes takes quite some time to get to the fins