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In this round-up we are looking at seven air coolers that will work with pretty much any CPU. As you will see in our photos and video the coolers come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and the prices also cover a spread from about £20 all the way past £70. At the high end the Deepcool Assassin II costs more than a basic liquid cooler and takes up considerably more space around the CPU socket. Go to the other extreme and the Cryorig M9 is a compact tower that will fit inside your tower case with room to spare.
In this round-up we are looking at seven air coolers that will work with pretty much any CPU. As you will see in our photos and video the coolers come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and the prices also cover a spread from about £20 all the way past £70.
At the high end the Deepcool Assassin II costs more than a basic liquid cooler and takes up considerably more space around the CPU socket. Go to the other extreme and the Cryorig M9 is a compact tower that will fit inside your tower case with room to spare.
We have listed the seven coolers in alphabetical order and might we suggest that you watch the video before you dive into the words and photos for further details.
We tested the coolers using two families of CPU. These are AMD AM3+ and Intel LGA2011, while ignoring LGA115x. The reason is that the AMD FX-8370 has a TDP rating of 125W and the Intel Core i7-4820K has a TDP of 130W so you are safe to assume that any cooler that can control those two processors at stock clocks will have no trouble with a 91W Core i7-6700K. Spoiler alert, all of the coolers managed that task without too much difficulty.
So what about overclockers who want to go way, way beyond 120W? For AMD we swapped out the 125W FX-8370 for a 220W FX-9590 that Turbos to 5GHz and on the Intel front we overclocked the Core i7-4820K to 4.5GHz using 1.4V.
FX-9590 and overclocked Core i7-4820K drew about 270W at the wall socket when the CPU was loaded (about 100W more than the baseline tests) which provided all the heat we needed to test the coolers, in some instances beyond their limits.
Now let's take a closer look at each cooler.
Alpenfohn Atlas
The Alpenfohn Atlas is a curious beast with a street price of around £43. This split tower design is rated at 200W TDP with twin 92mm PWM fans, one in the middle and one on the outside. Mounting this cooler on an AMD motherboard is easy enough as Alpenfohn supplies a decent array of hardware, however the cooler points up or down and cannot be oriented front to back so you really need a case that is ventilated to exhaust hot air upwards. No matter what you do one of the fans will be very close to the rear of your graphics card.
For LGA115x you use the back plate, four studs, spacers and side rails in the usual way and then hold down the cooler with the cross bar. The mounts work well and the cooler can point in either direction.
The fundamental problem with the Atlas is that it is fairly wide and the two small fans run up to 1,800rpm and are relatively noisy. This wouldn't be the end of the world if the Atlas was an especially good cooler, however this is not the case.
Specification
| Intel LGA115x support | Yes |
| Intel LGA1366 support | Yes |
| Intel LGA2011 support | Yes |
| Intel LGA775 support | Yes |
| AMD AMx/FMx support | Yes |
| TDP rating | 200W |
| Base of cooler | Copper |
| Heat sink | Split mini aluminium tower |
| Heatpipes | 5 x 6mm heatpipes |
| Supplied fans | Two 92mm fans |
| PWM | Yes |
| Fan speed | 400rpm-1,800rpm |
| Fan bearings | Hydraulic |
| Air flow | 37cfm |
| Noise levels | 8dBA-24.3dBA |
| Dimensions | 125mm (H) x 105mm (W) x 140mm (D) |
| Weight | 650g |
| Warranty | Not given |
Product Shots
Testing
This cooler is rated at 200W TDP and while it did passably well with the FX-8370 and Core i7-4820K at stock clocks, it struggled with the FX-9590 at stock and the overclocked Core i7-4820K.
KitGuru Says: Alpenfohn Atlas uses a novel form factor but that doesn't seem to deliver any particular benefit.
Score: 5 out of 10
Award: Best Avoided
Buy from Overclockers UK for £42.95 inc vat HERE.
Alpenfohn Brocken ECO
Alpenfohn Brocken ECO lists a Gapless HDC base as a feature (it stands for ‘Heatpipe Direct Contact') and this makes the Brocken ECO stand out in this group as the other coolers use a mainstream design where the heatpipes are sandwiched in the base of the cooler.
Direct contact heatpipes generally indicate a cooler that is relatively cheap and relatively inefficient as the base is unlikely to be completely flat.
This is borne out by the specification as the 160W TDP is slightly lower than you might expect for a tower cooler with a 120mm fan. The price is under £25, which looks positively cheap.
Despite that low price you still get a handful of features that you may not necessarily expect.
The asymmetric design of the tower gives you a choice about the positioning of the Wing Boost 2 fan (which has a spare connection so you can add a second fan) and there are extra fan clips in the package. This suggests a decent amount of thought on the part of the designer although this is offset by the tiny writing on the installation guide which makes life difficult.
Installing the cooler on an AMD system requires a certain amount of preparation. You have to swap out the standard back plate and install some studs and spacers that are topped off with a frame that you assemble, for which you require a small screwdriver. This is fiddly and requires the motherboard to be on the bench however it has the advantage that the final step of installing the cooler body is easy and you can choose the orientation, either up and down or across the board.
Specification
| Intel LGA115x support | Yes |
| Intel LGA1366 support | No |
| Intel LGA2011 support | Yes |
| Intel LGA775 support | Yes |
| AMD AMx/FMx support | Yes |
| TDP rating | 160W |
| Base of cooler | Direct contact heatpipes |
| Heat sink | Aluminium tower |
| Heatpipes | 4 x 6mm heatpipes |
| Supplied fans | 120mm Wing Boost 2 |
| PWM | Yes |
| Fan speed | 500rpm-1,500rpm |
| Fan bearings | Not given |
| Air flow | 65cfm |
| Noise levels | 4.6dBA-27.3dBA |
| Dimensions | 150mm (H) x 126mm (W) x 88mm (D) |
| Weight | 600g |
| Warranty | Not given |
Product Shots
Testing
When you run the CPU at stock speed the Alpenfohn Brocken ECO does a fine job. The limitation with this cooler is that the fan tops out at 1,500rpm so once the cooler is overwhelmed with the heat it doesn't have any way to respond. It is an unfair criticism to say that the Brocken ECO cannot deal with an overclocked Core i7-4820K as that plays no part in its design.
KitGuru Says: Although the Alpenfohn Brocken ECO is an unsophisticated cooler, it does a decent job at a low price.
Score: 8 out of 10
Buy from Overclockers UK for £24.95 inc vat HERE.
be quiet! Shadow Rock LP
The key feature of the be quiet! Shadow Rock LP is its horizontal design. This layout means that be quiet! has been able to include a 120mm fan on a cooler that only stands 75mm tall, which makes it a natural candidate for use in a slender tower case or HTPC. On the downside the cooler covers the area around the CPU socket and may well interfere with your system RAM and other components. You will absolutely, definitely want to install this cooler with your motherboard on the bench and not inside your case. At the time of testing, it was £30.
In fairness to be quiet! a certain amount of the installation hassle is a direct consequence of the low profile of the cooler. There is a crossbar that you feed across the cooler before clamping it down with two screws. This would be less awkward if there was more working room but that would make the cooler taller.
Once you have the cooler installed you will find it lives up to the be quiet! name and is essentially silent however when you push the cooler to the limits of its 130W TDP rating the fan spins up to 1,500rpm or 1,600rpm and is audible.
Specification
| Intel LGA115x support | Yes |
| Intel LGA1366 support | Yes |
| Intel LGA2011 support | Yes |
| Intel LGA775 support | Yes |
| AMD AMx/FMx support | Yes |
| TDP rating | 130W |
| Base of cooler | Nickel plated copper |
| Heat sink | Low profile aluminium |
| Heatpipes | 4 x 6mm heatpipes |
| Supplied fans | 120mm Pure Wings 2 |
| PWM | Yes |
| Fan speed | 1,500rpm max |
| Fan bearings | Rifle bearing |
| Air flow | 51cfm |
| Noise levels | 25.5dBA max |
| Dimensions | 75mm (H) x 122mm (W) x 134mm (D) |
| Weight | 395g |
| Warranty | Three years |
Product Shots
Testing
The Shadow Rock LP performs well within the limits of its relatively low TDP. The direction of the air flow through this laid down cooler also affects the behaviour of the cooler. If you use a beefy CPU at stock clocks you can expect to see temperatures around 50 degrees which is about ten degrees hotter than a high end tower cooler. When you push the be quiet! hard with a 200W processor the temperature will head towards 80 degrees.
KitGuru Says: Good cooler, excellent fan, mounting system needs improvement, low price.
Score: 8 out of 10
Buy from Overclockers UK for £29.99 inc vat HERE.
Cryorig M9a/M9i
Cryorig supplies its tiny M9 cooler in two versions. M9a is for AMD and M9i is for Intel, however this is LGA115x and not LGA2011. This means the fitting kit supplied with each cooler is specific to one particular socket and as a result it is as simple to install as you might wish, and presumably also saves some money. The M9 is expected in the UK market soon with a target price of £20.
The dual use backplate replaces the stock AMD backplate and is flipped up one way for AMD and the other for Intel. It's a clever system that allows you to orient the small tower cooler pointing up and down the motherboard or across. To add to our joy the cooler body is slightly offset on its base so you get a few more options about the position of the 92mm fan. A second set of fan mounts are provided however we consider this to be overkill, and if you require a second fan you should probably upgrade your cooler.
While we're on the subject of the fan mounting clips it is worth mentioning they are made from very thin wire and are a little awkward to pop into position.
Specification
| Intel LGA115x support | Yes (Cryorig M9i) |
| Intel LGA1366 support | No |
| Intel LGA2011 support | No |
| Intel LGA775 support | No |
| AMD AMx/FMx support | Yes (Cryorig M9a) |
| TDP rating | 120W |
| Base of cooler | Copper |
| Heat sink | Mini aluminium tower |
| Heatpipes | 3 x 6mm heatpipes |
| Supplied fans | 92mm fan |
| PWM | Yes |
| Fan speed | 600rpm-2,200rpm |
| Fan bearings | Not given |
| Air flow | 48cfm |
| Noise levels | 26.4dBA max |
| Dimensions | 125mm (H) x 102mm (W) x 87mm (D) |
| Weight | 425g |
| Warranty | Three years |
Product Shots
Testing
The tiny Cryorig tower cooler has the lowest TDP in the round-up at 120W yet it performs well. Admittedly we couldn't test with our Core i7-4820K as it doesn't have LGA2011 mounts however it did a good job with the FX-8370 and also managed to keep the FX-9590 under control. The temperature figures were very similar to the Alpenfohn Atlas and be quiet! Shadow Rock LP which was unexpected for such a small cooler.
KitGuru Says: Cryorig M9 is pleasingly capable for such a small and cheap cooler, although it has obvious limitations for overclockers.
Score: 9 out of 10
You can buy the Cryorig range of products over at Ebuyer HERE. The M9 models are priced at £16 inc vat.
Deepcool Assassin II
Deepcool Assassin II is the biggest, baddest and most extreme cooler in this round-up and was £69.99 at the time of testing. It weighs in a shade under 1.5kg and stands 167mm tall. This imposing height is due to the 140mm fan located in between the two towers of the cooler and to add to the cooling potential there is a second fan on the outside of tower which is 120mm.
The cooler arrived in a funky matt black package with metallic green printing and foam inserts to protect the cooler in transit. Despite these precautions the two towers of our cooler lean towards each other in a manner that presumably was not intended by the factory and while there was still plenty of room for the central fan it didn't really look correct.
The two fan cables are quite long so there is scope to tuck them away neatly or to hook them up to convenient fan headers but you also get a PWM hub in the package as an accessory so you have plenty of options.
Installing the cooler isn't quite as straightforward as we might like. The basics are good, so the four mounting studs are retained in the back plate with rubber caps that prevent components from dropping out of place during installation. The tricky part is that you need a long thin screwdriver that can reach the two mounting screws located between the two finned bodies.
When the Assassin II is running the two rubberised Deepcool GF fans are impressively quiet.
Specification
| Intel LGA115x support | Yes |
| Intel LGA1366 support | Yes |
| Intel LGA2011 support | Yes |
| Intel LGA775 support | Yes |
| AMD AMx/FMx support | Yes |
| TDP rating | 220W |
| Base of cooler | Copper |
| Heat sink | Split aluminium tower |
| Heatpipes | 8 x 6mm heatpipes |
| Supplied fans | Deepcool GF 1x 140mm, 1x 120mm |
| PWM | Yes |
| Fan speed | 300rpm-1,400rpm |
| Fan bearings | Dual FDB |
| Air flow | 70cfm |
| Noise levels | 17.8dBA-27.3dBA |
| Dimensions | 167mm (H) x 143mm (W) x 158mm (D) |
| Weight | 1479g |
| Warranty | Three years |
Product Shots
Testing
Assassin II is the best performer in the round-up however the temperature figures were only slightly lower than the much cheaper Phanteks PH-TC12DX. Where the Assassin II scores especially highly is that the fans operate at a low speed and are very quiet. No doubt the array of eight heat pipes plays a significant part. We never saw the Deepcool fans operate above 1,200rpm even though they have a maximum speed of 1,400rpm.
KitGuru Says: An epic cooler that is big, heavy, quiet and expensive however it is overkill for most people.
Score: 8 out of 10
Phanteks PH-TC12DX
Phanteks offers its PH-TC12DX cooler in blue, red or black in addition to the white version that we saw – which retails at £38.99. In fact there is a fair amount of aluminium on show so it would be more accurate to describe the cooler as white and silver.
The painted finish on the cooler body looks good and the fans and cables are also white to give a colour match.
The layout of the cooler is quite conventional, however it has been designed with some neat details that work well. Let's start with the installation instructions which are noteworthy as four separate sheets are supplied with different languages (English, Chinese, Japanese and German). This makes them much easier to understand than the usual multi-language instructions.
For an AMD motherboard you use the stock back plate, then install the side rails, spacers and screws and after that you fix the cooler body in place. You need to remove the motherboard from your case to make life easier.
Moving on to the mainstream, for LGA115x you install a back plate with four studs that have with hex heads that prevent the studs from rotating. Slip on some spacers and two side rails and lock the whole lot together with four nuts. Once the cooler has been screwed down you can clip on the two fans with their captive wire clips. There is a Y cable in the pack of accessories so you can hook the two fans up to a single header. It is a good, logical way of doing things.
Specification
| Intel LGA115x support | Yes |
| Intel LGA1366 support | Yes |
| Intel LGA2011 support | Yes |
| Intel LGA775 support | Yes |
| AMD AMx/FMx support | Yes |
| TDP rating | Not given |
| Base of cooler | Copper |
| Heat sink | Aluminium tower |
| Heatpipes | 4 x 6mm heatpipes |
| Supplied fans | 120mm PH-F120HP |
| PWM | Yes |
| Fan speed | 600rpm-1,800rpm |
| Fan bearings | Updraught Floating Balance |
| Air flow | 23cfm-69cfm |
| Noise levels | 21.9dBA-27.6dBA |
| Dimensions | 157mm (H) x 107mm (W) x 126mm (D) |
| Weight | 880g |
| Warranty | Five years |
Product Shots
Testing
The Phanteks PH-TC12DX almost kept up with the epic Deepcool Assassin II and only fell a handful of degrees behind on our AMD CPUs. The overclocked Core i7-4820K ran at the same 62 degrees on both the Phanteks and Deepcool coolers which is pretty impressive.
One difference is that the Phanteks fans operated in the range of 1,500rpm to 1,800rpm when the CPU was loaded at 100 percent. The fans were nice and quiet at low speed but were audible when they were running near their maximum speed.
KitGuru Says: Phanteks has supplied a quality cooler for less than £40 and it performs superbly well.
Score: 9 out of 10
Buy from Overclockers UK for £38.99 inc vat HERE.
Prolimatech Basic 81
The Prolimatech Basic 81 is aimed at the mainstream and is supplied with mounts for Intel LGA115x and LGA2011 so you can forget about LGA1366, LGA775 and AMD. It is a tower cooler with six heatpipes and a single 120mm fan. At the time of testing, it was £34.99.
We found the installation instructions were not especially clear and the two sets of screws for LGA115x or LGA2011 were not labelled. Once you figure out which thread size is correct you mount two side rails (using a back plate with LGA115x) and then mount the cooler. The hardware looks a bit crude but fits well and does a decent job. The rails can be arranged so the cooler mounts in either direction.
For LGA115x you have a back plate, spacers, side rails, screws, a cross bar and two more screws which is pretty conventional however the nature of Prolimatech's hardware means this isn't really a job you want to carry out inside your case.
We found the way the wire fan clips hook on the outside of the fan meant they could conflict with your RAM. There are spare clips in the package so you could install a second fan if you choose and you also get a choice of fan sizes as you get four clips for 120mm and four for 140mm fans.
Specification
| Intel LGA115x support | Yes |
| Intel LGA1366 support | No |
| Intel LGA2011 support | Yes |
| Intel LGA775 support | No |
| AMD AMx/FMx support | No |
| TDP rating | Not given |
| Base of cooler | Copper |
| Heat sink | Aluminium tower |
| Heatpipes | 6 x 6mm heatpipes |
| Supplied fans | 120mm fan |
| PWM | Yes |
| Fan speed | 600rpm-1,600rpm |
| Fan bearings | Double ball bearing |
| Air flow | Not given |
| Noise levels | Not given |
| Dimensions | 158mm (H) x 75mm (W) x 130mm (D) |
| Weight | 900g |
| Warranty | Not given |
Product Shots
Testing
The Basic name doesn't really do justice to the Prolimatech Basic 81 as it does a decent job. It kept our Core i7-4820K at 40 degrees at stock clocks. When we overclocked the temperature rose to 68 degrees which is respectably close to the 62 degrees managed by Deepcool and Phanteks. The fan operated at less than 1,200rpm and noise levels were admirably quiet.
KitGuru Says: Prolimatech Basic 81 performed better than we expected however the Phanteks is only slightly more expensive and is a significantly better package.
Score: 8 out of 10
Buy from Overclockers UK for £34.99 inc vat HERE.
Lastly, for easy comparison, we have created side-by-side graphs for the maximum temperatures that were measured with each of the cooling solutions in the 4820K (at 3.9GHz), 4820K (4.5GHz), FX-3870 (stock) and FX-9590 (stock). Missing bars means that there was no score for that cooler, for example on the 4820K charts, there is no score for the Cryorig M9 (i) because that cooler does not support LGA2011.
When you compare a bunch of CPU coolers there is a temptation to simply dwell on temperature figures, however this round-up of seven CPU coolers demonstrates that performance is only part of the equation. The fact is that all seven coolers performed well in our tests when we were working with 125W or 130W of CPU power, and that is considerably more power and heat than a desktop CPU such as a Core i7-6700K produces at stock clocks.
You can see from our test results that there is a clear separation between, say, the Deepcool Assassin II and Alpenfohn Brocken ECO but the fact is that the Brocken ECO perfectly well at lower thermal loads and would be a decent choice for anyone looking for a tower cooler that comes at a budget price. On the other hand if you're overclocking and really pumping out the heat the Brocken ECO struggles and doesn't do an especially good job. That's not an error on the part of Alpenfohn but simply a consequence of the Brocken being pushed way past its TDP rating of 160W.
In addition to the way each cooler performs you also have to look at the mounting system and also the size and shape of the cooler as it clearly has to fit inside your case without causing problems around the CPU socket of your motherboard. Coolers with two fans typically require a good deal more space than a single fan model. We are hearing reports that Skylake CPUs have been damaged by super-heavy coolers so you also need to be aware that simply installing your cooler in a careless manner could have disastrous consequences. Other factors to consider are the operating speed of the fan(s) as that affects noise levels and of course there is no getting away from the selling price.
So you've (hopefully) watched the video, read the review pages and looked at the graphs and now we'll wrap things up with a final thought about each cooler. For buy links and further details please visit each page for the respective product you are interested in.
Alpenfohn Atlas seems like a fish out of water in this round-up as the small form factor isn't especially small. It performs reasonably well and is priced in the middle of the group however it seems unlikely that your case will accommodate this chunky cooler any more easily than a regular 120mm tower.
Alpenfohn Brocken ECO is cheap and effective, provided the thermal load isn't too high. It takes a certain amount of work to install the cooler however the hardware does a decent job and we were pleased by the low price of Brocken ECO.
Be quiet! Shadow Rock LP is an impressive low profile cooler that costs less than £30 and it could clearly play a role inside a small form factor PC. The downside here is the fiddly mounting system as it is fairly tricky to install the Shadow Rock LP on a bare motherboard, let alone inside your chassis.
Cryorig M9 is a tower cooler with a 92mm fan that costs less than £20 yet it performs outrageously well for such a small cooler.
At the other end of the scale Deepcool Assassin II is huge, heavy and expensive but works very well indeed. The problem faced by Deepcool is that the price is so high you could easily buy a 120mm liquid cooler instead. If you have a particular aversion to liquid cooling and don't mind the weight and sheer mass, it is a great option to cool high end processors.
We found a great deal to admire in the Phanteks PH-TC12DX as it looks good, is straightforward to install, uses good hardware and cools effectively. We also love the colour options as that adds an element of fun.
Finally we have the Prolimatech Basic 81 which is Intel only and offers the novel feature of supporting either 120mm or 140mm fans. The Basic 81 did a decent job of controllng our overclocked Core i7-4820K however it was edged out by the Phanteks.
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Kitguru says: In this round-up we have shown that even a tiny air cooler that sells for less than £20 can do a fine job and a mid-range model such as the Phanteks can provide all the cooling you need. If you want the ultimate in air cooling you end up paying a high price for a colossus such as the Deepcool. The really good news is that air coolers can offer a valid alternative to the All In One Liquid cooler while also saving a decent amount of money.
KG, how could you not include the Noctua D15 in this roundup? Commonly known to be the best performer of the moment….
This..
It wasnt missed, this isnt meant to be a roundup of every high end cooler, many of which we have already reviewed. This is a look at an unusual selection of coolers that most people have missed. Its a little ‘off beat’ intentionally.
Yes, but more to the point it could have been used as a baseline to compare others relative performance 🙂
I’m happy not to have the D15 in as it’s price is very much a barrier to using it (as well as the weight!) – it’s good to see focus on other makes such as Cryorig.
Not a valid test of anything without a Noctua NH D15 at least as a baseline.