Cooltek ITX30 Review

[section_title title=”Conclusion”]

Conclusion

It’s the part of the review that you have all been waiting for, so let’s not keep you waiting!

I suppose the first thing most people are going to notice with this cooler is that it is a 30mm tall CPU cooler capable of cooling a 100W TDP CPU. When I first set eyes on the ITX30 and saw is cooling figures quoted from Cooltek I thought that it was possibly the best cooler to be tested in a long time. I have built a couple of small form factor builds now, where because of the use of an unlocked processor, certain components, such as the memory, have had to be sacrificed to try and fit a slightly larger cooler in to get the best cooling available. Whilst not topping our performance charts, for its size, the performance is simply brilliant and if it was readily available at the time of these builds would have definitely been in contention for being used to allow for better components to be selected.

Upon removing the Cooltek ITX30 from its packaging, you are immediately stuck by the weight of such a small heat sink. The build quality is absolutely superb, with a solid construction which is backed up by a good overall finish of the package. Some people will ask, “Why is such a small cooler so heavy?” The answer is quite simple; there is a lot if copper in it. This has the bonus of increasing the cooling performance of such a small cooler, and ultimately, heat sink as copper is one of the best heat dissipaters on the market. The all copper design means that the heat sink itself would have probably performed well without the introduction of the copper heat pipes. However, these add even more substance and cooling potential to the ITX30 buy evenly distributing the heat over the heat sink.

So obviously, you would expect it to perform well as there is a lot of copper crammed into the cooler. If this wasn’t enough it is backed up by some brilliant engineering as well. The performance in both of our tests was nothing short of amazing for a cooler of this size. Testing it on your Haswell 4770k, I thought that the cooler would be pushed well beyond its limits by the chip, which is well known to have some heat issues when overclocked. The temperatures which we achieved were well within the chip’s comfort zone. The performance is positively astounding for a cooler measuring 30mm tall and is near silent during operation. The Cooltek ITX30 is easily the most impressive cooler I have come across.

On to the installation side of things. The ITX30 couldn’t be any easier. Simply place it on the CPU and attach the four screws through the motherboard into the standoffs which hold the cooler in place. It is so simple that there is not any need to remove the fan like you do with a few of the other coolers currently on the market. With regards to the fan. There was no fan noise with regards to whining or rattle from the slim 80mm fan. Even at full load, and the PWM capability did a good job of making sure the fan was working at its optimal speed for the cooling required.

A quick glance at the price may put a few people off to begin with, but lets look at it a little closer. To begin with the price of copper at the minute is sky high, as many of us know from the increase in cable theft we see on the news. The amount of planning and engineering that has also gone into this cooler to keep it as small as possible without losing its cooling performance also needs to be applauded. When you look at the offering from Noctua in this form factor, the L9i, which is a little bigger than the ITX30 and utilises a larger fan, the ITX30 easily justifies its price tag. The only thing that I can really criticise the cooler for is not really a fault from the product. The availability of the ITX30 is almost non-existent here in the UK, though I have been assured by Cooltek that there will be stock coming into the country soon. I have searched high and low to try and find fault with the Cooltek ITX30. The design and execution is excellent whilst maintaining exceptional quality of materials and finish. The performance and price easily justify themselves which means that I feel I would only do this cooler an injustice if I awarded it anything less than our Editor’s Choice award.

I would like to thank Cooltek for the review sample and look forward to seeing more from them in the future.