AMD and Intel CPU Cooler Roundup
Cooler for Socket FM1, AM3+, AM2+, 939, 754, LGA 775, 1155, 1156, 1366 and 2011 CPUs
The introduction ...
OCinside.de already tested several CPU coolers and today we published a large cooler comparison chart with HSFs from Alpenfoehn, Antec, Arctic Cooling, Cooler Master, Prolimatech, Revoltec and Xigmatek.
The new comparison contains some heatsinks with different fans and varied fan speeds.
So you can easily compare dozens of cooling results to find the right CPU cooler for your PC.
Cooler test setup ...
All temperatures were read with the SpeedFan 4.40 tool.
The program Avidemux reach an average of 50% processor load and the program Prime95 get the processor load up to nearly 100%.
Measurements are always the peak temperature of the CPU, which is the highest temperature that the processor in the test reached with Prime95.
When a heatsink fan combination reached a temperature of approx. 55°C, the test is aborted.
The below coolers were tested on the same system, so their results are therefore well comparable.
In the detailed review of the Cooler Master V6 GT and Arctic Freezer 13, the cooler were tested with another test system, so that the values from the review are not equal to the test results below.
All tests were measured outside the chassis and the ambient temperature was about 23°C.
Of course, the results vary in other systems, so the values should only be compared with each other.
The coolers were tested with different fan speeds and were equipped with different available number of fans.
The Antec H2O 620 and H2O 920 coolers are no pure air cooler, but ready filled all-in-one watercoolers with integrated water pump and radiator.
CPU cooler test results ...
All tested heatsink fan combinations are listed in the following bar chart and splitted into four results:
Idle (green), Avidemux CPU at about 50% load (blue), Prime95 CPU with 100% load (yellow) and Prime95 OC with overclocking (red).
Here you can easily see the different distributions of the cooling results, e.g. the very small difference between the Prime95 and Prime95 OC result of the Antec H2O 920 AIO watercooler at full fan speed.
Furthermore, the results shows the reduced cooling capacity at medium and low fan speeds.
One can listen to each fan sound volume on the last page of the detailed reviews, because an increased fan speed not only increases the cooling capacity, but unfortunately increases also the fan noise.
Here are all temperature results in idle, at 50% CPU load and at 100% load in alphabetical order:
The following chart contains again for easy comparison all coolers with maximum fan speed at idle, CPU at 50% load and 100% load, sorted by the total cooling result.
Here are the cooler temperature test results at maximum fan speed:
Here are all temperature measurements with full fan speed listed in tabular comparison:
| Cooler manufacturer, type, speed, test result | Idle | Avidemux | Prime95 |
Idle overclocked |
Avidemux overclocked |
Prime95 overclocked |
| Antec Kühler H2O 920 @ 2200 rpm, 2x 120mm | 28°C | 30°C | 39°C | 29°C | 34°C | 40°C |
| Cooler Master V6 GT @ 2200 rpm | 26°C | 31°C | 35°C | 29°C | 35°C | 41°C |
| Prolimatech Super Mega @ 1100 rpm, 2x 140mm | 27°C | 30°C | 33°C | 28°C | 34°C | 41°C |
| Xigmatek Aegir @ 1800 rpm | 26°C | 30°C | 33°C | 29°C | 34°C | 41°C |
| Antec Kühler H2O 620 @ 2000 rpm | 28°C | 33°C | 40°C | 29°C | 35°C | 42°C |
| Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus @ 2000 rpm | 29°C | 32°C | 37°C | 30°C | 36°C | 43°C |
| PcTweakers Topwin 15 @ 2200 rpm | 28°C | 31°C | 35°C | 29°C | 36°C | 43°C |
| PcTweakers Topwin 16 @ 2600 rpm | 25°C | 31°C | 35°C | 29°C | 36°C | 43°C |
| Prolimatech Super Mega @ 1100 rpm, 1x 140mm | 27°C | 31°C | 34°C | 29°C | 35°C | 43°C |
| Alpenföhn Matterhorn @ 1500 rpm | 26°C | 31°C | 36°C | 29°C | 36°C | 45°C |
| Revoltec Pipe Tower Pro @ 1300 rpm | 27°C | 32°C | 36°C | 29°C | 37°C | 45°C |
| Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 @ 2000 rpm | 31°C | 34°C | 37°C | 31°C | 36°C | 48°C |
| Cooler Master Vortex Plus @ 2800 rpm | 29°C | 33°C | 38°C | 29°C | 37°C | 48°C |
| Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev2 @ 2400 rpm | 33°C | 38°C | 42°C | 33°C | 42°C | 52°C |