Raijintek Ereboss Review

• Brand: Raijintek
• Model: Ereboss
• Website: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-000-
• RRP: £31.99 (At time of the review)

It’s not often you come across a new brand in the world of computers, but when one does come along it is interesting to see what is on offer.  One such brand is the newly arrived Raijintek, who specialises in Cooling, PSUs and Cases.  Raijintek was formed by the former main team at Cooler Master and Xigmatek bringing their knowledge and skills into a company which plan to provide some cutting edge technology.

Having just released 3 brand new CPU coolers to the market, today I will be taking a look at one of those, specifically the Raijintek Ereboss, which is the premier one from the range.  How will it stand up to the rest of competition?  Is this new company here to make a bang, or will it just be a little splash in a huge ocean?  Let’s find out, starting with the specifications of the Ereboss…

 Specification

• Dimension: 140(W) x 110.5(D) x 160(H) mm
• Base Material: Nickel Copper
• Fin Material: Aluminum Alloy; Solder-free fins assembly
• Heat-pipe:6pcs.
• Fan Dimension: 140(W) x 150(H) x 13(D) mm
• Voltage Rating 12V
• Starting Voltage 7V
• Speed: 1100 ~ 1650 R.P.M.
• Bearing Type: Sleeve Bearing
• Air Flow: 66.65 CFM (Max.)
• Air Pressure: 1.72 mmH2O (Max.)
• Life Expectance: 40,000 hrs
• Noise Level: 28 dBA
• Connector: 4 pin with PWM
• Weight: 808g (Heat Sink

The Raijintek Ereboss comes packaged inside a mainly white box with a fancy illustration of the Ereboss cooler surrounded by red haze.  For a new company, packaging is paramount and I feel Raijintek have done a very good job here, it’s subtle, styling and does the job great.

On the rear and sides of the packaging, we have a more colourful red as the primary colour and have illustrations of the Ereboss at multiple angles.  On the side there is a list of specs including the supported mounts which mention all but AMDs FM2 socket.  I can confirm the Ereboss does indeed support FM1 and FM2 so there is no worries in it fitting the most popular CPUs out today.

Bundled with the Ereboss are mounts for both Intel and AMD CPUs, an instruction manual, fan mounts, thermal paste which isn’t in a tube, but in a small foil packet, there are also mounts for the fan which I will demonstrate a little bit more on in the installation and the 140mm fan itself.

I would have liked to see the thermal paste come in a tube, as it’s a lot easier to conserve for future use.  The cooler supports mounting for all the major sockets such as 115X, 775, AM2, AM3, FM1 and FM2.

Taking a look at the main bulk of the cooler, we can clearly see the single tower design.  Here we have the 140mm fan which is very slim, coming in at 13mm deep, which is insane in my book, will it hinder the cooling performance in the testing?  I don’t know but this gives more room for clearance depending on which way you mount the fan.

Here is a closer look at the fan, which as mentioned earlier, is 140mm.  The speed of the fan varies between 1100-1650rpm which isn’t bad by any standards and has a voltage rating of 12V, albeit with its PWM control, it will be automatically controlled by your motherboard.

From side on, you can see the heat pipe design of the Ereboss.  The Ereboss has a 6 copper heat pipe design and the fins have a solder-free assembly.

Taking a look from the top, you can see Raijinteks logo embedded into the cooling tower.  Here you can see how thin the 140mm cooling fan is and the grooves in the top of the cooler where the rubberised fan mounts slot into.

Here we have the base of the cooler, which is made from copper but coated in nickel.  If you look closely, you can see splodges of the nickel coating on the copper heat pipes.  Raijintek have done a really poor job here and although it’s a cooler at the cheaper end of the spectrum, I would have expected better craftsmanship overall.

Installation of the Raijintek Ereboss was a really mixed experience.  Overall it was relatively easy to install, but the final part was horrible due to the way the tower is designed.  I have illustrated a step by step installation process for all to see.

First of all, it was a case of lining up the mounting plate, which doubles up as the AMD and Intel mounting.  The mounting plate itself is made of hard plastic, which is a little disappointing as metal is a much more reliable and stronger material.  I feel this is to bring the coolers overall price down, as it is in the mid-market price range of just over £30.

Once you have aligned the mount, it’s to thread the screws through the relevant mounting holes, all the way through to the other side of the motherboard.

The next step of the installation is flipping the motherboard over (gently of course) and locking the back plate into place with 4 x plastic locking nuts.  Again this seems to be another case of cost cutting, as metal is more durable, but they work and that’s all that’s really needed.

After that, the next step is placing the Intel bars across the screws, so they are parallel.  As you can see, they have a hole in the middle for a screw, which is for the final part of the installation.

Once the bars are installed, now it’s time to secure them into place.  This time the locking nuts are metal and I’m still confused as to why the entire mounting mechanism isn’t made from the same material, but I really do believe this is to save costs.

Now it’s time to illustrate how the fan is mounted onto the cooler.  Probably the strangest method I have seen so far, but nevertheless, it works.  Here are the rubber mounts which are required to mount the fan.  This is to reduce the amount of vibration caused by the fan.

As you can see here, the rubber mount goes through the fan and your left with a small 90 degree rubber end.  This goes into the top grooves of the cooler, which is clearly illustrated in the Closer Look section of this review (top down view picture).

Here is the finished article after the small mounting bar is installed.  The fan was then installed before the picture to show you the Ereboss in all its glory.

CPU – Intel i7 4770k

Motherboard – ASRock Z87 Extreme3

Memory – G.Skill RipjawZ 8GB (2400MHz CAS10) 2x4GB

Graphics – Gigabyte GTX 770 Windforce x 3

Cooler – Raijintek Ereboss

Storage – Intel 520 240GB Solid State Drive

PSU – Enermax 1200w Platimax

To test the capability of the coolers, our testing methodology is simple.  We measure the temperatures after 10 minutes on idle, both at 3.9GHz which our samples stock turbo boost speed and with an overclock of 4.5GHz.  To test the loaded temperatures I use prime95 and its torture test for 10 minutes and record the max temperature given.

Any time a cooler hits 100c on any test, it is automatically classed as a fail, simply due to the extreme temperatures which isn’t good for 24/7 systems.

Noise levels are tested with a decibel meter and the readings of the noise levels are taken when the coolers are in idle and loaded states.  The background noise during testing is very minimal and not enough to disrupt the readings given.

So, now the Ereboss has been tested, installed and even illustrated, how did Raijintek do with its debut onto the market?  Did it succeed by making a bang?  Or was it more like a sparkler dying out in the winter’s night?

Well starting with the performance, oh boy for a cooler this price, it can certainly hang with the best of them, especially a stock when loaded.  It matches the performance and even slightly beats the Noctua NH-12S which is an impressive achievement, given its current price point.  At 4.5GHz the results are really similar and at idle, it is comparable to the best of them.  At full load however, is where the cooler starts to show its limits and I feel this is where the single tower design and slim fan really struggle.  It however still managed to beat the Enermax ETS-T40 as it failed to even cope at all with 4.5GHz under load.

The acoustic performance pretty much reflects the thermal performance testing, in that when running at 4.5GHz, it is a real contender but at idle, this cooler is really loud.  The volume doesn’t differ much from when at full load, whether this is a PWM issue or something else, it still does relatively well in my opinion.

The aesthetics are a mixed bag, for a single tower it looks quite good with it silver body, red fan rim and white fins, it does look relatively nice but one thing I really want to say is, I am really disappointed with the chrome splashing on the copper heat pipes and feel that it’s a case of sloppy workmanship which is a shame really but nevertheless, it is a great performer.

In terms of build quality, this is where the cooler doesn’t meet my expectations.  The fins are easily bent, the mounting plate is made of plastic and although the performance is there, it would have been nice to have seen a metal mount; it doesn’t make much difference as long as it’s strong but quality is a huge issue for me when selecting a cooler.  Overall the cooler isn’t flimsy which is good but improvements can be made and I really do look forward to see how Raijintek respond to that.

Price wise, this cooler is only £31.99 and without a doubt, before I go any further, deserves our Value award.  For this price, it is a fantastic cooler and I really question you to find one with the same type of performance for less.  Ok looks wise, it could be improved upon but this is a mid-range cooler, targeting the big boys, with a 12mm depth fan!  It’s not often I express myself as much as this but this is a brand new company, with a brand new product and it’s always exciting to see.

Overall Raijintek should be proud with what they have done and brought to the market, obviously improvements could be made and I’m sure over the coming months/years they will be made.  The Ereboss lives up to the hype that Raijintek are here and for £31.99, you can’t really do much better for the performance.