Antec product coming.... need somebody to test one for me!
- Thread starter Ace Modder
- Start date
Associate
nice... when will they be up for sale? this would be perfect for my lads PC
First stock is likely to still be around 6-8 weeks away yet I'm afraid.
Iron-Man I haven't had any trust email from you yet.
Associate
- Joined
- 29 Oct 2009
- Posts
- 432
Bagsy. 
Man of Honour
Got mine today as well. Will put together a review over the weekend with some comparisons to a couple of other coolers.
Will put together a review over the weekend with some comparisons to a couple of other coolers.
Got mine today as well.
Yours is different to sweols.
Man of Honour
Mines bigger!! 
Associate
its not all about size m8! or so she tells me
Associate
still no trust msg from you
I clicked on trust and then clicked the option for send a message, Is this right
?still no trust msg from you
I have done another one message now which has said it sent, fingers crossed
Man of Honour
I have run into a major unforeseen problem with my cooler. It doesn't fit my motherboard!! Luckily the wife's B85 board overclocks my 4670k so tomorrow I am going to rob components from both pc's and build them up inside another case so that I can do my review.
Man of Honour
Finally got everything sorted so here is my review of Antec's as yet unreleased C400 cpu cooler.
I had a package turn up last Thursday from Ace Modder and inside was this.
The box was a little battered but the contents were all ok due to the nice thick padding around the sides and bottom.
Inside the box on the left was all the mounting parts, a pair of fan clips to mount a extra fan, a tube of Antec thermal compound and you also get a manual although as it's a pre release it's all in Chinese. You can see how everything goes together by following the pictures so all is good.
Specification.
Size - 156x125x52mm (HxWxD) (without fan)
Heatpipes - 4x 6mm heatpipes (direct contact on the base)
Weight - 650g
Fan - 120x120x25mm
Fan speed - 800-1900rpm
Fan bearing type - Rifle bearing
Fan Noise - 20.3-34.5dba
CFM - 77CFM
Fan MTBF 50000 hours
Compatibility - Intel sockets 775/1150/1151/1155/1156/1366/2011 AMD FM1/FM2/AM2/AM2+/AM3/AM3+
Strangely the dimensions on the specification panel on the box are the size of the box itself!! The weight is also wrong at 830g. I don't know where they got that figure from because if you include the box everything weighs 850g. That needs sorting before it goes on sale.
Let's take a look at the cooler:-
Front
Left side
Rear
Right side
Top
Base
The base is extremely rough on this cooler
Different angle
Although you can't really tell by looking at it you can clearly feel the direct contact heatpipes and the whole base has a really rough finish. I would have liked to see a much better finish on the base than that so maybe it's something that Antec can look at for the final version. Hopefully it won't affect temps too much.
Fittings.
Antec has decided to fit this cooler with their own take on push pins. The idea is that you push the clear pins through the mounting bracket and into the mounting holes on the motherboard. You then push the black pins through the centre and it splays the tabs out on the rear of the motherboard which secures the mounting bracket to the board. I have seen this before on some of Arctic Coolings cheaper heatsinks and while they do the job I would much rather have a proper set of screw down fittings with a backplate. Intels socket 2011 uses the metal screws to the left. If you have a AMD setup it can be fitted in seconds because the cooler just clips directly to the existing retention bracket on the motherboard.
Installation take 1
Straight away I realised I was going to have a problem. The mounting bracket is right up against the vrm heatsinks on my Asus Z87 Maximus VI Hero.
The cooler has a bracket fitted to it that looks like wings and it attaches to the mounting bracket on the motherboard exactly as you would fit a AMD cooler. This means that whatever orientation I place the cooler in it will foul the heatsinks and will be prevented from being secured.
This cooler is impossible to be fitted to my motherboard. Luckily my wife's pc has a Gigabyte B85M-D3H rev 1.0 that overclocks my 4670k so I went ahead and robbed her board, fitted my cpu and built up another pc in another case to complete the review.
Installation take 2
That's better, although I can still only fit the cooler orientated front to rear due to the mounting bracket being too close to the vrm heatsink again. It can't be fitted facing the top of the case as the "wings" will be in the way again.
Once the mounting bracket is secured to the board you can clamp the cooler down. This gave me another surprise as there is next to no pressure holding the cooler down and it is very loose on the cpu. Again, this is something a proper fitting kit with backplate would massively improve on. At this point I didn't have much hope for this cooler due to the lack of mounting pressure but I was determined to give it a fair trial.
There is no problem with memory with this cooler as it doesn't interfere with any of the memory slots even if you had all 4 slots filled.
Switched on at last.
I didn't realise it had a blue led as it's in the hub and not the usual places in the fan frame.
Test setup
i5 4670k at stock and 4.4ghz (core and cache) (1.265v vcore, 1.30v vring, 1.9v cpu input voltage)
Gigabyte B85M-D3H rev 1.0 F9 bios
2x 4Gb Samsung Green @1600mhz 7-8-8-24-1T
Coolermaster Storm Scout case (mk1)
1x 140mm front intake
1x 120mm rear exhaust
1x 180mm top exhaust
Load temps measured after 15 minutes Prime 95 small fft's.
Air temp 21.1 degrees Centigrade
4670k @ stock
Silent cpu fan mode selected in bios.
Idle fan speed 1038rpm
Idle temp 27/24/27/23 degrees C
Load fan speed 1285rpm
Load Temps 58/58/59/54 degrees C
At idle the fan had a faint hum but nothing intrusive. At load the hum was more noticeable plus a quiet whooshing noise from the airflow.
Normal cpu fan mode selected in the bios
Idle fan speed 1040rpm
Idle temp 24/21/24/20 degrees C
Load fan speed 1473rpm
Load temp 58/57/58/53
That hum was much more noticeable at load speeds now and the airflow noise was louder too. Not that intrusive but if you like silence you would notice it.
4670k @ 4.4Ghz
Silent cpu fan mode selected in bios
Idle fan speed 1038rpm
Idle temp 29/26/28/25 degrees C
Load Fan speed 1400rpm below 75 degrees, 1928rpm 75 degrees and over
Load temp 73/75/76/70 degrees C
Normal cpu fan mode selected in the bios
Idle fan speed 1043rpm
Idle temp 28/25/28/23 degrees C
Load fan speed 1646 below 75 degrees, 1928rpm 75 degrees and over
Load temp 73/75/76/71 degrees C
From 1600rpm to full speed the fan is like a turbine. For me it's far too loud to live with everyday. The temps are good though. With my watercooling setup I have idle temps of 23/21/22/21 and load temps after 15 mins of prime 95 of 60/61/63/56 so this cooler is only 13-14 degrees higher.
I tried two different fans (Akasa Piranha and Silverstone SST-FQ122) to see if it made any difference to noise and temps and found that the temps were more or less the same (within a degree of the Antec fan). Noise is another matter though. The Piranha and Silverstone at idle where completely silent with the Piranha ticking over at only 736rpm and the Silverstone at 1016rpm. If I thought the Antec was like a turbine at full speed then the Piranha was another level above that again. Damn they are noisy at full chat. The Silverstone was quieter than both but still very noticeable. I guess air cooling just isn't for me.
Conclusion
Keeping in mind that this is a pre-release product I feel that Antec has put together what could potentially be a very good cooler. There are just a few things that I feel could be improved on before it is released.
1. A better finish on the base may improve temps a bit. The current base is just far too rough and doesn't look like a product worthy of joining the Antec brand.
2. Change the mounting to a proper screw down kit with a backplate. The current kit is going to throw up a lot of problems due to incompatibility with motherboard vrm heatsinks. Many boards have heatsinks like my Hero and even on the Gigabyte I could only have the cooler orientated in one direction due to the mounting bracket being against the vrm heatsink.
3. If they insist on keeping the mounting bracket with push pins at least do away with those "wings" on the cooler which are another problem for motherboard compatibility. Go for a straight v shape arm like on the AMD coller instead and give it more tension at the same time as I feel it doesn't clamp the cooler down enough.
4. Change the fan. It may have just been the one I got but that whine is pretty annoying and it's so loud at full speed.
5. Correct the specs on the box.
Many thanks to Ace Modder and Antec for giving me the chance to review one of their upcoming products.
I had a package turn up last Thursday from Ace Modder and inside was this.
The box was a little battered but the contents were all ok due to the nice thick padding around the sides and bottom.
Inside the box on the left was all the mounting parts, a pair of fan clips to mount a extra fan, a tube of Antec thermal compound and you also get a manual although as it's a pre release it's all in Chinese. You can see how everything goes together by following the pictures so all is good.
Specification.
Size - 156x125x52mm (HxWxD) (without fan)
Heatpipes - 4x 6mm heatpipes (direct contact on the base)
Weight - 650g
Fan - 120x120x25mm
Fan speed - 800-1900rpm
Fan bearing type - Rifle bearing
Fan Noise - 20.3-34.5dba
CFM - 77CFM
Fan MTBF 50000 hours
Compatibility - Intel sockets 775/1150/1151/1155/1156/1366/2011 AMD FM1/FM2/AM2/AM2+/AM3/AM3+
Strangely the dimensions on the specification panel on the box are the size of the box itself!! The weight is also wrong at 830g. I don't know where they got that figure from because if you include the box everything weighs 850g. That needs sorting before it goes on sale.
Let's take a look at the cooler:-
Front
Left side
Rear
Right side
Top
Base
The base is extremely rough on this cooler
Different angle
Although you can't really tell by looking at it you can clearly feel the direct contact heatpipes and the whole base has a really rough finish. I would have liked to see a much better finish on the base than that so maybe it's something that Antec can look at for the final version. Hopefully it won't affect temps too much.
Fittings.
Antec has decided to fit this cooler with their own take on push pins. The idea is that you push the clear pins through the mounting bracket and into the mounting holes on the motherboard. You then push the black pins through the centre and it splays the tabs out on the rear of the motherboard which secures the mounting bracket to the board. I have seen this before on some of Arctic Coolings cheaper heatsinks and while they do the job I would much rather have a proper set of screw down fittings with a backplate. Intels socket 2011 uses the metal screws to the left. If you have a AMD setup it can be fitted in seconds because the cooler just clips directly to the existing retention bracket on the motherboard.
Installation take 1
Straight away I realised I was going to have a problem. The mounting bracket is right up against the vrm heatsinks on my Asus Z87 Maximus VI Hero.
The cooler has a bracket fitted to it that looks like wings and it attaches to the mounting bracket on the motherboard exactly as you would fit a AMD cooler. This means that whatever orientation I place the cooler in it will foul the heatsinks and will be prevented from being secured.
This cooler is impossible to be fitted to my motherboard. Luckily my wife's pc has a Gigabyte B85M-D3H rev 1.0 that overclocks my 4670k so I went ahead and robbed her board, fitted my cpu and built up another pc in another case to complete the review.
Installation take 2
That's better, although I can still only fit the cooler orientated front to rear due to the mounting bracket being too close to the vrm heatsink again. It can't be fitted facing the top of the case as the "wings" will be in the way again.
Once the mounting bracket is secured to the board you can clamp the cooler down. This gave me another surprise as there is next to no pressure holding the cooler down and it is very loose on the cpu. Again, this is something a proper fitting kit with backplate would massively improve on. At this point I didn't have much hope for this cooler due to the lack of mounting pressure but I was determined to give it a fair trial.
There is no problem with memory with this cooler as it doesn't interfere with any of the memory slots even if you had all 4 slots filled.
Switched on at last.
I didn't realise it had a blue led as it's in the hub and not the usual places in the fan frame.
Test setup
i5 4670k at stock and 4.4ghz (core and cache) (1.265v vcore, 1.30v vring, 1.9v cpu input voltage)
Gigabyte B85M-D3H rev 1.0 F9 bios
2x 4Gb Samsung Green @1600mhz 7-8-8-24-1T
Coolermaster Storm Scout case (mk1)
1x 140mm front intake
1x 120mm rear exhaust
1x 180mm top exhaust
Load temps measured after 15 minutes Prime 95 small fft's.
Air temp 21.1 degrees Centigrade
4670k @ stock
Silent cpu fan mode selected in bios.
Idle fan speed 1038rpm
Idle temp 27/24/27/23 degrees C
Load fan speed 1285rpm
Load Temps 58/58/59/54 degrees C
At idle the fan had a faint hum but nothing intrusive. At load the hum was more noticeable plus a quiet whooshing noise from the airflow.
Normal cpu fan mode selected in the bios
Idle fan speed 1040rpm
Idle temp 24/21/24/20 degrees C
Load fan speed 1473rpm
Load temp 58/57/58/53
That hum was much more noticeable at load speeds now and the airflow noise was louder too. Not that intrusive but if you like silence you would notice it.
4670k @ 4.4Ghz
Silent cpu fan mode selected in bios
Idle fan speed 1038rpm
Idle temp 29/26/28/25 degrees C
Load Fan speed 1400rpm below 75 degrees, 1928rpm 75 degrees and over
Load temp 73/75/76/70 degrees C
Normal cpu fan mode selected in the bios
Idle fan speed 1043rpm
Idle temp 28/25/28/23 degrees C
Load fan speed 1646 below 75 degrees, 1928rpm 75 degrees and over
Load temp 73/75/76/71 degrees C
From 1600rpm to full speed the fan is like a turbine. For me it's far too loud to live with everyday. The temps are good though. With my watercooling setup I have idle temps of 23/21/22/21 and load temps after 15 mins of prime 95 of 60/61/63/56 so this cooler is only 13-14 degrees higher.
I tried two different fans (Akasa Piranha and Silverstone SST-FQ122) to see if it made any difference to noise and temps and found that the temps were more or less the same (within a degree of the Antec fan). Noise is another matter though. The Piranha and Silverstone at idle where completely silent with the Piranha ticking over at only 736rpm and the Silverstone at 1016rpm. If I thought the Antec was like a turbine at full speed then the Piranha was another level above that again. Damn they are noisy at full chat. The Silverstone was quieter than both but still very noticeable. I guess air cooling just isn't for me.
Conclusion
Keeping in mind that this is a pre-release product I feel that Antec has put together what could potentially be a very good cooler. There are just a few things that I feel could be improved on before it is released.
1. A better finish on the base may improve temps a bit. The current base is just far too rough and doesn't look like a product worthy of joining the Antec brand.
2. Change the mounting to a proper screw down kit with a backplate. The current kit is going to throw up a lot of problems due to incompatibility with motherboard vrm heatsinks. Many boards have heatsinks like my Hero and even on the Gigabyte I could only have the cooler orientated in one direction due to the mounting bracket being against the vrm heatsink.
3. If they insist on keeping the mounting bracket with push pins at least do away with those "wings" on the cooler which are another problem for motherboard compatibility. Go for a straight v shape arm like on the AMD coller instead and give it more tension at the same time as I feel it doesn't clamp the cooler down enough.
4. Change the fan. It may have just been the one I got but that whine is pretty annoying and it's so loud at full speed.
5. Correct the specs on the box.
Many thanks to Ace Modder and Antec for giving me the chance to review one of their upcoming products.
Last edited:
Associate
At least feedback will give them an opportunituy to tune the product. for a pre sale version I think they are close, based on your review