Towers and turrets: 5 CPU coolers from small to large

Cooler Master Hyper 212 LED White Edition is a member of the popular Hyper 212 cooler series, which includes both non-illuminated and multi-color ARGB coolers. The White Edition is equipped with a 12 cm fan with a soft white glow. The height of the structure is a little less than 16 cm (the reference height of the tower), and the weight is about 600 g.

Only the fan frame and mounting brackets are painted white (they are not narrow metal here, but wide plastic ones to simplify installation), while the metal radiator has its own natural color. The fins are made of silver aluminium, and the heat pipes are made of red copper.

The blades are made transparent for a more uniform illumination. Because of this, however, accumulated dust will be noticeable, which, however, motivates you to clean your PC more often, not once a year, but at least every six months. The fan is based on a classic sliding bearing (Sleeve Bearing).

The presence of four heat pipes makes the Cooler Master Hyper 212 LED White Edition a suitable solution for quiet cooling (the fan starts at 600 rpm) of younger modern processors - Intel Core i3 and AMD Ryzen 3. Of course, the cooler will cope with more powerful processors, but in In this case, the spinner can accelerate to its maximum speed (1600 rpm).

Noctua NH-U12S redux is a slightly simplified and at the same time much cheaper modification of the Austrian cooler NH-U12S chromax.black. The novelty has lost its black color, mounting brackets for the second fan and a tube of thermal paste. However, the default thermal interface is applied to the sole of the cooler.

The number of heat pipes has also been reduced from five to four. True, due to the use of an intermediary plate that distributes heat evenly over all tubes, the loss is not felt much. Proxy plate coolers are best for CPUs with multiple chips (chiplets) under a thermal cover, like Ryzen 5.

The height of the Noctua NH-U12S redux is almost 16 cm, and the weight of the heatsink together with the fan is approximately 750 g. chromax.black. Therefore, it starts not from silent 300 rpm, but from 450, which is still very quiet.

If desired, Noctua NH-U12S redux can be upgraded with a second fan. For this, the NA-FK1 upgrade kit is designed, which, in addition to the 12-cm turntable, includes mounting brackets, rubber vibration-absorbing pads, a splitter for connecting two turntables and a pair of speed-lowering resistors.

be quiet! Shadow Rock 3 White is a white, or rather black and white version of the original Shadow Rock 3 cooler from the German brand, with an asymmetrical heatsink shape. The array of edges is made quite large, but at the same time it is shifted to the left, so as not to interfere with the installation of RAM modules.

The radiator contacts the processor through five heat pipes with a diameter of 6 mm each. Both fins and tubes are painted in a single white color. And only the sole of the cooler without any coating is just copper. The ugly soldered ends of the tubes are neatly hidden under a brushed aluminium cap with the be quiet! logo.

Right in the center of the cover you can see a hole through which you can reach one of the mounting screws. A long screwdriver, again with the be quiet! logo, is carefully included in the package. The height of the cooler is 16.5 cm, which is a little more than typical, and the weight is about 700 grams including the fan.

Be quiet! Shadow Wings 2 is based on a Rifle Bearing. This, of course, is not ultra-durable hydrodynamics, but it is better than a conventional plain bearing. The blades have aerodynamic grooves, and the corners are rubberized. It's just a pity that the cooler is black and not white. Moreover, white Shadow Wings 2 fans are sold separately.

Deepcool AS500 Plus is an improved version of the original AS500 cooler with a second fan. It is made in the form of a narrow tower, which does not overlap the RAM slots at all. Moreover, the fans are lowered as low as possible to blow over the RAM heatsinks and, most importantly, the VRM area of the motherboard.

At least a slight airflow to the heatsinks on the mosfets of the processor power circuit is critical. Most tower coolers direct airflow above this area, forcing additional small fans to be installed directly on the VRM. Whereas Deepcool engineers have thoughtfully thought of this moment in the AS500 Plus.

The weight of the heatsink with fans is 1.2 kg, not least because of the presence of as many as five thick heat pipes. The base of the tubes contacts the processor through a mirror polished heat spreader plate. The top of the tubes is covered with a decorative cover with a soft, unobtrusive ARGB backlight.

A pair of Deepcool branded fans have a diameter of 14 cm, a durable hydrodynamic bearing and aerodynamic slots in the impeller. The rotation speed varies from 500 to 1200 rpm. Of course, it is impossible to call only the single-tower AS500 Plus a supercooler, but it will quietly and effectively cope with the cooling of Core i7 and Ryzen 7 processors.

The Arctic Freezer 50 is a dual-tower, dual-fan cooler that is unofficially referred to as a super cooler. Due to the convex shape of the ribs, as well as decorative illuminated plastic overlays, it has a slightly spherical shape, which adds visual gloss. The height of the structure is almost 17 cm, and the weight is almost 1.2 kg.

There are two versions of the Arctic Freezer 50 on sale. The first is multi-socket (LGA 1200, 1151, AM4, etc.), the backlight of which is synchronized with the PC motherboard. The second is for highly specialized AMD Threadripper processors, it is equipped with an external ARGB controller and a remote control.

Running through two arrays of aluminium fins are six nickel-plated copper heatpipes to resist corrosion. Even the sole that contacts directly with the processor is nickel-plated. The cooler comes with the famous Arctic MX-4 thermal paste. By the way, the new MX-5 with even better thermal conductivity has recently gone on sale.

The cooler is blown by a pair of Arctic P-Fan fans - an outer diameter of 12 cm, and an inner diameter of 14 cm, both on FDB hydrodynamic bearings. They start at 200 rpm and, if necessary, accelerate to 1800. The main advantage of the Freezer 50 is the price, which is lower than most other double-tower supercoolers.