[section_title title=”Conclusion”]
Conclusion
If you read my previous installments in this mini-series then you might remember that there was a lot of grumbling about those coolers overshooting various other sockets. Happily, there were no such issues here. Everything fitted onto the board nicely and without obstructions.
Installation was a bit tricky for me as all my cables were still attached to the testbench motherboard while I was fitting the C7. If you follow the process shown in the video though you will have it installed in a few minutes without much stress at all.
Eagle-eyed readers may have spotted that there’s no overclocking section today, and that’s because it failed with a BSOD when I applied our 4500MHZ profile and ran Prime 95 to put the system under full load. It didn’t take long to reach the thermal barrier either, with the BSOD occurring within 3 minutes of starting Prime. Now that’s not to say that overclocking isn’t possible on this cooler, just that you will have to go for a more mellow speed than our regular tests and considering the size of the C7 it’s not that much of a surprise.
Performance at clock speed on our 4770k though did provide interesting results. The claim on the box of being 25% cooler than Intel’s stock fan was entirely justified, as it beat the Intel fan by a whopping 33% both at idle and load settings. Not bad in the slightest considering they both have roughly the same footprint. Sadly the Intel stock heatsink is about all it compares favorably with, as the Cryorig C7 sits almost at the bottom of the table when it comes to coolers big and small. Just like the Intel fan, though, ramp up the speeds and you ramp up the noise coming from it. It was very loud and distracting on the desk next to me and so even in a case, I expect you to be able to hear it when it’s working at its hardest.
I can’t really say that it’s good value for money either if you are a desktop user and can fit a ‘normal’ sized aftermarket cooler. At $30 in the US you really do seem to be paying a premium for a small and capable unit that can fit pretty much anywhere and run well at stock.
This brings our experience with Cryorig to a close for the time being, but if you missed our previous reviews you can find the H5 Ultimate here and the M9i here.
Once again I’d like to say a big heartfelt thank you to Cryorig for sending the C7, M9i and H5 Ultimate to us to review.
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Performance
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Design
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Value
Summary
Pros:
– Suitable replacement for a stock cooler if you have a small case and size really is an issue
– Ideal for Small Form Factor PCs
Cons:
– Rather loud at full speed
– Performance compares poorly against other coolers
– Expensive compared to other coolers
