Hardware Akasa Nero S CPU Cooler Review

The follow up to the Akasa Nero, the Nero S fancies itself as a premium cooler ready to take on the best. With four fat direct-contact heatpipes and a nifty S-blade fan it certainly looks up to the task. We see if it'll triumph or go up in flames in the bit-tech thermal test rigs.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cooling/2010/03/22/akasa-nero-s-cpu-cooler-review/1

 

I keep wondering why these manufacturers can't just group all 4 pipes together and leave paperthin thickness aluminium between them. Just bend the outer tubes, and it should solve the issue of no transfer due to HSF being too small.

And I predict a series of comments about how the V-X performs (or underperforms, rather) again. :S

 

touching.

 

touche

 

toupée

 

I get the feeling that the AMD mounting mechanism is a bit naff by today's standards. It seems that any cooler that uses the latch to secure it underperforms on AM3 compaired to other sockets.

 

I would have liked to see a direct comparison between this and the Akasa Freedom Tower. Especially on LGA775, although I understand us poor old Core 2 Duo owners are being put out to pasture.

 

edited so we don't touch you quite so much.

 

I wish you-know-who would touch me...

 

No offence intended to Bit-Tech as they do not make these coolers but these reviews are getting to the point of generic. For a few degrees here and there give or take £5-£10. Is it really that important? When building a system that is likely to be costing you in excess of £600, does £10 really break the budget? The whole recent batch of CPU coolers virtually all look the same too, metal plates with what looks to be, even if it isn't, a standard case fan attached. What happened to the good old days when CPU coolers also looked cool as well as kept your CPU cool? - (Although I do like the Special Edition of the Titan Fenrir, I just wish they did a blue version).

Bit-Tech - Do you have to draw straws to see who gets the pleasure of these tedious tests?

 

On a related note (because I kinda have to), I liked the Nero, so big points to Akasa for this! Looks to be a strong contender for a while on the big-boy socket!

 

Notice that all of the coolers perform worse at idle on the AMD tests. That's because Bit is using a 1.6V core compared to 1.3V/1.35V of the Intel systems so its probably got a higher thermal output when not loaded. The load figures are comparable though; its just that the Intel graphs use a different scale.