Cooler Xtreme : Coolers
: Cpu Cooler : Power Cooler PCH137
Power Cooler PCH137
If the heat sink on this cooler
looks just a little familiar to you, there's a reason. It's exactly the
same as the one used by the OCZ
Gladiator. Same copper surround, same super-thin fins, same stiff
but fairly friendly clip. And a similarly pleasing price, considering the
all-copper construction of the heat sink - Crazy PC
have this cooler listed for $USD26.95 as I write this.
Crazy PC didn't provide the cooler,
by the way; all of the Power Cooler products in this comparison came straight
from the manufacturer in Taiwan. I'm not sure where you can buy the other
Power Cooler products, but I'm sure some enterprising retailer's going to
tell me soon.
OCZ put a high-power noisy
Delta fan on this heat sink, and get excellent performance out of it. Power
Cooler use one of their Turbo Fans. The result is the best performance of
anything from the Power Cooler range, with the same pretty low noise level
as the rest of their Turbo Fan coolers. The stock PCH137 scored 0.62°C/W
- which makes it pretty much a serious overclockers' cooler, without it
having to make a noise like a gas turbine motorcycle for hamsters.
When I replaced the Power Cooler
fan with my high power Y.S. Tech unit, the PCH137 managed 0.54°C/W, which
is a hair better than the similarly specified Gladiator achieved, but you
can put that down to the inaccuracy of the test rig. With a 7000RPM fan
on it, a PCH137 is a top-spec OCZ Gladiator.
Given the bargain-basement
$US34.99 price of the Gladiator with its Delta fan, all other things being
equal, it's the better buy. Provided you can live with a computer that sounds
as if a small hair dryer's trapped inside it.
But if shipping from OCZ dealers
to where you live costs a lot, and/or you see a PCH137 for cheap somewhere,
I recommend grabbing it. It's the exact same thing with a more family-friendly
fan, and it's easy to get some slightly longer mounting screws and a higher
power fan if you want to convert this merely good cooler into a great one,
just as good as the Gladiator.
