Thermalright AXP-100 CPU Air Cooler Review @ [H]

FrgMstr

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Thermalright AXP-100 CPU Air Cooler Review - Thermalright, one of [H]’s long time favorites when it comes to CPU cooling, reaches out today with a cooler designed for smaller ITX and HTPC systems. Full nickel plating, 140mm and 120mm fan compatibility, and a mere 5.8cm height with the fan installed allows a big compatibility footprint in a very small package.
 
Anyone else notice how cranked down the original fan is? That frame is really torqued down.
 
Agree with blackscreen...... its really tweaked... overly so.... the flex on that frame is absurd.....
1357664554p4QvpQYRgm_2_18_l.jpg


i dont see the need for it to be THAT tight.... and is that a flex spacing at the center of the heatsink too???

1357664554p4QvpQYRgm_2_19_l.jpg


I wonder if that has any effect on the performance.....
 
This fan is not as rigid as you might think.
It appears there is an enormous amount of pressure being exerted on the fan but there isn't.

In fact, that screw is tightened one-half turn after it was firmly seated.

Oh and the second picture might have some bevel due to lens distortion. I was zoomed all the way out on the lens which is known to cause a minor curving effect on the image.
 
It is nice to see Thermalright addressing the HTPC arena. There really is a lack of good low profile options. For instance I have a Silverstone GD04 case and the Blu-ray drive sits right above the CPU cooler limiting the total height to 65-70mm. The limitations and typically somewhat mediocre to poor airflow really makes it a tough proposition. I ended up settling on the COOLER MASTER GeminII M4 for $30 since I could not find anything in stock at the time as an alternative and actually have been mostly pleased. Temps are about 12-14C cooler under 100% load compared to the OEM Intel cooler on my 2500K lightly OC'd to 4.2Ghz at stock volts. Not a huge improvement, but good enough.
 
I wonder how this would fit on a ITX board... I have a A75M-ITX and had a nice cooler but had to remove it and replace it with STOCK since it required me to remove the motherboard over and over to remove the cooler to access the ram sticks. I like the fact this one doesn't go over the sticks of ram but not sure if it would fit in that scenario.
 
Nice review. Now, how would we obtain one in North America ? Thermalright seems to be THE brand to be out of stock nearly everywhere. AXP-100 is particularly hard to find...
 
1st page 2nd paragraph, AZP-100 should be AXP.

This has long been discussed since its announcement in the SFF forums. We even had one member did some amazing test with his AXP-100 that just proves how good this cooler is.

Sadly, availability is the biggest issue at the moment but theres hope that it will improve over time. Price is definitely the sore point with this unit but theres always something you are giving up by going small. Other options for ITX and HTPC builds are the Silverstone NT06-PRO and the Noctua NH-L12.

Marc, what fan speeds did you test the cooler with? I would assume that the 140mm fan has a lower RPM compared to stock. Looking at Thermalright's Facebook page, they had their 140mm fan installed all the way from the corner to maximize airflow over the fins.
 
Been keeping an eye out for this thing since it was announced...still no availability ....buzz is such when it finally shows up its gonna sell at the price point or above...besides I'm just pissed I've been waiting this long ... vapor ware ;)
 
Need to proofread article -

Page 1 - thermal paste "Our channel milled CPU also requires a compound that is more viscous ". I thought you weren't doing hardware testing per the CPU section?

Page 1 - temperatures "Since we are dealing with water cooling..." Wait, what?? :D


Other than that, good article! Definitely going to pick one up for my rig.

Template errors fixed. Thanks for the extra eyes. - Kyle
 
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From Thermalright:
Hi Kyle,

It will be available to purchase on Amazon before mid February. NAN’s gaming gears is ready for pre-order now.
 
MITX will be a much bigger market with Haswell I think. I hope to see more and more of these coolers.
 
If you mean this one here, then I would suspect it should, albeit with the same constraints with the RAM hitting the larger fan, which doesn't seem like an ideal configuration anyway. With the 100mm fan, you should be fine, assuming it doesn't hit anything. There's no mobo compatibility list yet, so the only way to know is to try one or find someone with your board that has at this point.

The alternative from Noctua AMD Intel may also work, but it sits lower overall, which on some boards is an issue.

It would be nice to see how this does on a miniITX board with a GPU, as that's the real target for HSFs like this. The Big Shuriken 2 works well, but on an 1155 miniITX board, it blocks the PCIe x16 slot, which is essentially butting up against the CPU zone; it doesn't do that to AMD boards, as the socket area is comparatively much farther away from x16 slot. the Noctua NH-L9i uses an unusually quiet slim 92mm fan, so they don't recommend it for higher wattage CPUs unless there's good airflow in the case already.
Sycthe's Kozuti is decent, though I don't think it can compare with the Noctua or Thermalright units.

Testing on ATX or even mATX doesn't really show much, since those have far more room around the CPU to work with than miniITX. Hopefully the [H] will add such a rig to their testing repertoire and we can see if they can go big in a tiny little box. I suspect they'll either relish the challenge of building within the unique constraints, or will post some video of miniITX gear being destroyed with saws, guns, and possibly thermite. :D
 
If you mean this one here, then I would suspect it should, albeit with the same constraints with the RAM hitting the larger fan, which doesn't seem like an ideal configuration anyway. With the 100mm fan, you should be fine, assuming it doesn't hit anything. There's no mobo compatibility list yet, so the only way to know is to try one or find someone with your board that has at this point.

The alternative from Noctua AMD Intel may also work, but it sits lower overall, which on some boards is an issue.

It would be nice to see how this does on a miniITX board with a GPU, as that's the real target for HSFs like this. The Big Shuriken 2 works well, but on an 1155 miniITX board, it blocks the PCIe x16 slot, which is essentially butting up against the CPU zone; it doesn't do that to AMD boards, as the socket area is comparatively much farther away from x16 slot. the Noctua NH-L9i uses an unusually quiet slim 92mm fan, so they don't recommend it for higher wattage CPUs unless there's good airflow in the case already.
Sycthe's Kozuti is decent, though I don't think it can compare with the Noctua or Thermalright units.

Testing on ATX or even mATX doesn't really show much, since those have far more room around the CPU to work with than miniITX. Hopefully the [H] will add such a rig to their testing repertoire and we can see if they can go big in a tiny little box. I suspect they'll either relish the challenge of building within the unique constraints, or will post some video of miniITX gear being destroyed with saws, guns, and possibly thermite. :D

Thanks for your reply.

Yes that is my ITX board, the problem is that the board has chips on the back where a backplate would have to be placed!! So as you say I may have to buy one and test or find someone who has the same board and cooler! Might wait on Amazon UK to get stock as the return policy is good. I'm currently using a scythe kozuti which does not require a backplate! :eek:
 
Thermalrights installation instructions do say that you don't need to use the backplate if your board can't accomodate it.
Since it doesn't look like it puts nearly as much pressure on the CPU as the regular Venomous-X mounting kit does, it ought to be ok, but waiting for someone else to be the guinea pig seems like a safe bet.

FWIW, the Noctua models I linked don't use a backplate at all.
 
Thermalright has always been among the best thermal solutions ,yet performance comes with a cost.
 
Thermalrights installation instructions do say that you don't need to use the backplate if your board can't accomodate it.
Since it doesn't look like it puts nearly as much pressure on the CPU as the regular Venomous-X mounting kit does, it ought to be ok, but waiting for someone else to be the guinea pig seems like a safe bet.

FWIW, the Noctua models I linked don't use a backplate at all.

Thanks for the tip, will buy the axp100 and try once amazon UK have stock, think the thermalright has better performance than noctua nl9i!
 
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