An Asian Street Market Special,
this one's got "COOC" on the box, so that's what I'll call it.
I'm not in the habit of reviewing
coolers that I don't know who makes them, on the grounds that it's often
too difficult to tell whether you've found the same one I reviewed on a
cheap-PC-parts stall, or just something that looks similar.
But I don't think many coolers
are likely to look similar to this one, do you?
This is an all-copper exotic
with a radial-fin core enclosed in a copper frame. It's heavy, it's got
decent fin area, and it's got a normal top-mounted fan of no particular
merit.
The fan proudly bears an "AMD
Thunderbird" sticker. The sticker's in the same style as the real AMD
Athlon and Duron processor logos, but it's a total knockoff. AMD don't put
processor core code names on their logos.
This cooler's clip works in an oirdinary
enough way, but the cooler's bizarre design means it's a three-part design
with a floating ring around the circular fin array. It's a bit stiff, but
not a real nightmare to attach.
In the actual performance department,
the "COOC" cooler doesn't work as well as its zooty looks suggest. With
its quiet stock fan labouring to jam some air between its close-set fins,
it turned in a crummy 0.88°C/W result, which puts it behind pretty much
any half-decent aluminium cooler you care to name.
To see if the fan power was the
problem, I unscrewed the stock fan and replaced it with a 7000RPM Y.S. Tech
unit. Now the "COOC" made a big obnoxious noise, and managed 0.69°C/W. Which
is not an awful score, but isn't worth paying big bucks for, and certainly
isn't nearly as good as a copper cooler should manage.
In stock form, this spiffy-looking
cooler is all sizzle and no steak. With a really loud after-market fan on
it, it still isn't anything special. If you don't actually need much cooling
but want to make a style statement to anybody who looks through your Plexiglass
case window, this is a fine product. Otherwise, steer clear.
