G. Rivera
Highly recommended lil cooler for space-constrained builds
Great little cooler. The packaging comes with everything needed for current AMD and Intel systems, as well as a tube of Thermalright's TF7 thermal paste. I used it in a Ryzen 5 8600G system for my dad in the miniscule and cramped, Jonsbo C6 m-atx chassis. It's basically an ITX-sized case with m-atx compatibility (m-atx motherboard and atx-sized PSU), the tradeoff being the parts are cramped together and airflow isn't the best. That being said, I knew I wanted to get the biggest heatsink I could still fit in there to keep the CPU under control as silently as possible. This 67mm height seemed to be just the sweet spot I was looking for, allowing me to use a bigger and therefore more silent 120mm fan, as opposed to the 80-90mm fans found on smaller coolers. The fan can get loud at its top speed of 1800-1900rpm, but it generally doesn't have to spin that fast, unless I'm doing benchmarks like cinebench. Admittedly, it does make the cpu reach the TJ Maxx I set for it of 85 degrees, but in all other scenarios, temps and noise are more than satisfactory. The fan is pretty good for being included in the price, and at least in my application, that being that it's used in a cramped case where it only has about 10mm space between it and the next closest component (the psu), it matches or slightly outperforms the Silverstone Air Slimmer 120, which some reviewers consider to be the best slim 120mm fan in terms of airflow and static pressure. It's possible that given more breathing room, the Silverstone fan could really stretch its legs, but I just bring all this up to say, that you don't have to go out and buy a replacement fan just to get good performance because the included fan seems to be good enough quality to get at least 90% of this cooler's cooling potential right out of the box. That includes the supplied thermal paste. I'd use it until it runs out, before spending more on a more performative paste like that Thermal grizzly, Arctic, or Noctua stuff.