Gelid Tranquillo Rev.2 CPU Heat sink

[+Nexus18 MVC]

I wrote this review a few months ago, but I am only posting it here now!

I hope the following review will be helpful for people considering a new CPU cooler around the price point of ?20-40 :)

Mini Review of the Gelid Tranquillo Rev.2 CPU Heat sink:

Before:

After:

First Thoughts:

The first few things that I noticed about this heat sink was the size, looks and quality.

At first I thought there would be problems with it not fitting in my case and possibly blocking my RAM a wee bit, however once it was fitted, there was still a good bit of room in my case (apart from the top part, more due to the sonata 3 though).

You would think that this would be fairly heavy by looking at it, however once you hold it, it feels very light (IMO), certainly feels a lot lighter than some of my friends heat sinks.

The quality of the metal, heat pipes etc. looks great and feels great, however the edges might be a bit sharp although I didn't spill any blood over fitting the heat sink :p, so most people should be fine, but I have read that some users have cut themselves when they were fitting it.

The fan, which Gelid supplied (one of their own) is very good quality, the 4 pin cable is braided, and is still very flexible and it is quite long as well, so plenty of ways that you can manage the cable.

Their fan is much better than the antec tri cool 120mm fan that I currently have in terms of looks, build quality, noise and the amount of air that it moves (although the tri cool fan will move more air on the highest preset)

Installation:

Wasn't too bad, however the instructions weren't great and might prove to be a bit difficult for newbies.

Personally I found it fairly hard getting the fan attached to the heat sink using those brackets. Every thing else went pretty smoothly, however it was a bit of a tight fit trying to get the motherboard screwed back into the case at the top part due to the size (this was more due to my case size though and I am sure that it would be much easier with a bigger case).

It fits in my sonata 3 perfectly with a good bit of room left and I didn't have any problems with the fan interfering with my RAM (although it is in slots 2 and 4 and therefore when I buy another 2 sticks of RAM, I will need to move the fan up a wee bit for RAM with tall heat sinks).

I didn't use the thermal paste that gelid supplied as apparently it is quite clumpy and poor, so just used the antec formula 5 thermal paste. The way that I applied it, was a tiny amount on the CPU (pea size, maybe a bit smaller) and I simply put the heat sink on top (didn't spread it at all with my finger in a bag or using a card etc. just let the pressure of the cooler being screwed in do the spreading of the paste) and screwed each of the 4 spring nuts a bit until they were tight.

Noise Levels:

This thing is very quite if not virtually silent at idle, I no longer hear the CPU fan when it speeds up a bit, however during BFC2, you could just about hear the fan (although I was concentrating on trying to hear it during the game and therefore I would most likely not notice it when I am just concentrating on the game), it is certainly better than the stock one. Although now the GPU (4850) sounds very loud during gaming, so will have to replace that soon :p

Cooling:

At first I wasn't too sure about the temps, expected them to be a bit lower at idle and maybe a bit lower for load, however I remembered that my case is not exactly the best for cooling, I only have the one antec tri cool fan on the back, which is always set to low and that is it (apart from the component fans obviously) and plus my room has been fairly hot the last few weeks (no way of knowing exact temperature), so once this hot weather is over I certainly expect them to drop a fair bit and to also drop a bit more when I get a better case for cooling e.g. corsair 650D. I also think I could get the temps down a bit more if I used artic silver instead of the antec one.

You can feel a good strong current of air pushing through the heat sink at the back with your hand and this is at a low rep for the fan as it was at idle during the time.

Now the temps time :cool:

(For some reason the fan speed seemed to cut out completely, started displaying %, so I didn't include that part)

With minimal use and no gaming:

Stock Cooler:

Gelid Tranquillo:

A few minutes after playing BFBC 2 for a good few hours:

Stock Cooler:

Gelid Tranquillo:

Here are 2 screenshots comparing the core temp readings and HW monitor readings at idle.

The highest temperature is from gaming (BFBC 2 for a few hours).

Coretemp starts with windows, where as HW monitor doesn't, so that is why the readings for the lowest temps are a bit different to the lowest readings for HW monitor:

*NEW*

My temps have dropped a bit now for idle due to the weather not being as hot, don't know about gaming as I haven't tried one out yet since I last booted my PC:

Conclusion:

This is a great cooler considering the price, it is virtually silent at idle and at load it is still nearly silent whilst offering great cooling performance at the same time :o. It looks very nice as well IMO.

However if you are going to be over clocking heavily (especially with the hotter chips i7 920 etc.) then this might not be the best cooler for you, unless you also have a very good case for cooling and replace the gelid fan with a better cooling fan then maybe it will do the job. It should be a bit better with the more efficient running CPUs and heavy overclocks e.g. i5 750 unless you want really low temperatures.

I would certainly pick this over the more expensive noctua and other brands of coolers again.

I got what I wanted for a very good price (?23.99 including delivery [Free delivery]), a silent yet also good at cooling CPU heatsink.

Hope you all liked the mini review and if anyone has any questions or would like something to be explained a bit better, just ask :)

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

That cooler seems fantastic. never heard of that company though!

[Astra.Xtreme]

Is the first RAM slot blocked? I had the same problem with the Cooler Master V8.

[AJerman]

Is the first RAM slot blocked? I had the same problem with the Cooler Master V8.

It fits in my sonata 3 perfectly with a good bit of room left and I didn't have any problems with the fan interfering with my RAM (although it is in slots 2 and 4 and therefore when I buy another 2 sticks of RAM, I will need to move the fan up a wee bit for RAM with tall heat sinks).

[+Nexus18 MVC]

That cooler seems fantastic. never heard of that company though!

It really is a great cooler, especially considering the price! :)

Neither had I, until I was recommended that cooler (my budget was no more than ?40, but I didn't want to spend that unless really neccessary) via another forum, so I went and looked at some expert reviews and they all recommended it very highly (the only disadvantage that they really mentioned was that it doesn't keep as low running temps on the hotter running CPUs (when overclocked heavily) like the i7 920 and in two reviews (hardware secrets I think? Can't remember the other) it came out better overall than one of the noctua coolers, which was around ?50 :o

Imagine what the temperatures and the noise levels (although probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference as the gelid fan is virtually silent already) would be like with an akassa apache 120mm fan instead of the stock gelid 120mm fan and a better case!

Is the first RAM slot blocked? I had the same problem with the Cooler Master V8.

As pointed out above, it covers "slot 1", so if I want to add a RAM stick to slot 1 regardless of the RAMs heat sink size, I will have to remove the gelid fan first.

For tall RAM heatsinks like the corsair vengeance (I think this would be too big though!) and the G.Skill used by me as shown in the above pics, the fan will have to be moved up a bit.

Although I recently moved to corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB), which is low profile memory and there doesn't look like there will be any issues what so ever with that corsair RAM or any other similar low profile memory in the first slot and the gelid fan!

[+Nexus18 MVC]

Updating this review a bit in terms of the cooling performance:

Recently got the BitFenix Raider from kul1, which consists of 3x120mm spectre fans, two at the front and one at the rear, with optional choices of mounting another:

- 1x120mm on the bottom

- 1x200mm at the front instead

- 1x200mm on the top

For the full review of the BitFenix Raider, check here:

http://www.neowin.ne...itfenix-raider/

Here is a comparison of the CPU temperatures between the Antec Sonata 3 and the Raider:

Sonata 3 (left) VS Raider (right):

Testing under minimal usage, which is just general web browsing:

Low Fan Speed:

Medium Fan Speed:

High Fan Speed:

Testing under load usage, approximately 20 minutes of BF 3 online per each fan speed setting, this is the most demanding real world application for my PC:

Low Fan Speed:

I skipped the medium fan speed tests, as I thought this is for load usage and that you would want the best possible cooling, so have just recorded the high fan speed temps;

High Fan Speed:

As you can see from the above, despite having a better case for cooling in theory and more fans, the temperatures haven't decreased, instead they are slightly higher.

This is due to the fans not being as good for cooling as the Tri-cool 120mm, however, they are much quieter, especially when set to high.

BitFenix Spectre 120mm Specs (according to BitFenix):

Noise - 20 dB-A

Speed - 1000?10% RPM

Airflow - 43.5?10% CFM

Air Pressure - 0.62 mmH2O.

Antec Tri-Cool 120mm Specs (according to SilentPCReview):

Unfortunately no air pressure readings

High RPM:

Noise - 36 dBA

Speed - 1930 RPM

Airflow - 53 CFM

Medium RPM:

Noise - 27 dBA

RPM - 1430 RPM

Airflow - 36 CFM

Low RPM:

Noise - 20 dBA

Speed - 870 RPM

Airflow - 21 CFM

However, the temps should definitely improve by a good bit when/if I mount a 200mm fan to the top e.g.

- Coolermaster Megaflow 200mm - 110 CFM

OR

- BitFenix Spectre Pro 200mm - 148.72 CFM ?10%

And replace the stock 3x120mm fans with better cooling fans.

I will update this review again, when/if I get a 200mm fan for the top and/or better cooling 3x120mm fans :)