Wonderful article ! Very good work and very useful information. In an ironic way, the Mugen 2 proves the fact that exactly the CHEAPEST can be the BEST. We should really commend Scythe for that. There are very good visual messages sent by the Pricing Graph. Thank you Sergey Lepilov & XBitLabs.

Congatulations for your work but Im sorry guys your test results are pretty strange. First off you are comparing heatsinks with a perfect base with heatsinks with not so good bases. Theres no way Mugen 2 and Baram are that good and better than TRUE and Megahalems. Im not gonna comment on the IFX 14 result because its ludacris.

In the end may I ask why didn't you include a HDT heatsink, Thor's hammer or Alpenphoen Brocken for exemple.

Mugen 2 ftw. Best bang for the buck amongst the coolers tested!

wtf idk??? I have a custom water cooling setup, witha crappy waterblock, radiator with 2 fans on each side, decent res, and my temps with a core I7 at 4Ghz are 40c idle and 70c load. Will upgradeing to a GTZ waterblock help at all? And is it that good of a performance increase to actually sand your cpu flat, besides voiding to watenty? I use AS5, so I cant upgrade there. What is the safest way to sand your cpu and how, without damaging it. Please help.

Wow.. it's one of the best articles I've read in a long time. I'm blown away by this.. but still have a hard time believing that the IFX-14 is THAT MUCH better than even the TRUE copper. Most review sites show the TRUE aluminum to be slightly better than the IFX-14, by like 1 degrees Celsius on average, or equal. Since the IFX-14 is larger and more expensive, the TRUE was considered king, especially with 2 fans on both sides.

@ halfwaythere, yes the Baram is that good. It's time to do a little research on the web--other review sites will confirm that. Xbitlabs is actually telling you exactly how much fin-surface area the Baram has compared to TRUE.

To everyone crying about not been fair because of the surfaces....why is it the reviewers fault that a company like Scythe sells a Mugen 2 for $40 with a great mirror finish and flat surfact and a company like Thermalright charges twice for his cooler and do not bother to deliver a decent contact surface?
I think the review in that regards is fair although the "winner" is quite strange and the testing for that particular HS seem to be created to favor it.
In any case, the Mugen 2 beats the TRUE in pretty much every review Ive seen so get over it.
It was king for a long time and there is always a new comer around the corner...its live...thats how it always goes.
Thanks for the review.

It is in general a very good and detailled article but flawed by the testing way. I would expect that the best to be the incredible price/performance king namely Mugen 2, but no the IFX-14 had to take the crown. Anyway it is strange to me, why you tested the IFX-14 with not one or 2 but THREE Scythe 11 fin (yep, counted them on the pic) 140 mm cooler while the Mugen had to use instead of it's own super good Scythe 78 cfm cooler that crap rubbish of 7 fin Silverstone FM123. To correctly evaluate every cooler, it should of used only it's own accesories (fan). For me I'm sure that if Mugen 2 had it's own cooler and IFX-14 did not have 3 Scythe coolers, it would wash off the floor with it.

It would of been interesting to see also a low level cooler like Arctic Freezer 7 Pro in this match to evaluate the real price/performance value.

I can't see why some would doubt the results of the IFX-14 placing as it did. When you consider it had the third highest cooling fin area and can be configured with three 140mm with a push pull setup between the rather large heat sinks, I find it very believable. In fact based on this review I just ordered the Thermalright IFX-14 along with three Sycthe 140mm fans. I think the review was well done and a lot of time and effort was spent to reveal very believable results.What might be worth mentioning it that the IFX-14 is the only heatsink that can be configured in such a way. Considering this is an enthusist site, it's refreshing to me to know that there is a product that offers the flexibility to use 140mm fans and three of them at that. I for one has never jumped on a bandwagon because others have. I just simply want the best available.


JOB WELL DONE !!!!!!

Theres noway on this Earth or beyond that a Megahalems is outperformed by all those coolers at around 1000 rpm. Thats were this heatsink shines and Ive tested/seen a lot of tests confirming this.

http://forum.crazypc.ro/a...id=41438&d=1245015341

And its very hard to believe you've got the best performing IFX ever and the worst Megahalems in the same test. Sample variation can explain a couple of degrees difference but not that much.