UK-TF Hardware Review

Cooler Master Hyper TX3

The Cooler Master Hyper TX3 is an entry level replacement cooler for processors and can be picked up for as little as £14.39 (as of 13/07/11) from the UK-TF Amazon Store .

There are many coolers in the market replacing the stock heatsink and fan and most like the Cooler Master Hyper TX3 are compatible with most core sockets on the market such as the AMD sockets 754/939/940, AMD2, AMD3 and Intel LGA775 & 1155/6 in this case.

It wasn't that long ago if you wanted performance cooling in your PC you would have to pay a fair sum of money to achieve it, not to mention a lot of blood sweat and tears to install it :)

Now considering a bog standard Intel Core 2 heatsink and fan can cost anywhere between £5 - £10 so for just £4 more it would seem a bit of a bargain to say the least to get improved core cooling in your PC. 

With everything in your PC you pay for what you get in most cases, however we all like a good bargain so is this worth the few extra quid? So lets crack on with the review.

 

Review & Installation

In this instance the cooler is reviewed on the Intel LGA 775 and tested on the Quad Core 8300 CPU.

For the installation I also bought the Artic Silver ArctiClean Thermal Material Remover & Surface Purifier Kit (60ml) from UK-TF Amazon Store @ £5.49 which was used to clear and clean the cpu after removing the old heatsink and fan.

The item comes well packaged with suitable kit to allow you to fit it on the varying sockets listed earlier along with cooler masters own compound, there should be enough compound to allow for 2/3 installations.

The fan supplied is a 92 x 92 x 25mm Cooler Master own brand fan which clips on with 2 retaining brackets (4 are supplied to allow for an additional fan to be mounted). This was one of the more fiddly parts of the installation and took me a few attempts to get it on securely and making sure the airflow was passing through (check the arrows on the top of the fan before installing).

At this point I would say the instructions whilst fairly simply were a little bit on the small side and it took a number of glances to check I had clipped it on correctly.

With the fan applied the next thing is to flip the unit over and have a look at the base.

The heatsink is made of a aluminium fin with 3 heat pipes and this itself is huge, if you have a micro system or small case fitting may become an issue. Luckily my case was just big enough to house the unit as it covers a whopping 90 x 51 x 139mm. 

Underneath the heatsink you can see the pipes and it appears to be a nice & smooth contact area.

 

There are 8 screws here which on the Intel sockets will require you to screw in 4 plates containing the clips used to push in and clip onto the motherboard.

On the plates themselves there are two hole locations which depending on the type of board will require you to use either one.  Again whilst a little small it was fairly clear on the instructions which was which.

There are 2 left and 2 right hand plates, although there was no instruction at all for where you locate these it is pretty obvious especially once you look at the finished picture :)

As far as assembly goes that's it, next step is installing it on the board.

The holes locate exactly over the standard sockets and operate in a similar push in and click method of a normal heatsink and fan, this portion of the installation took seconds and was very simple.

Plug into the standard 4 pin CPU fan socket and we are fully installed and good to fire up.

quick, simple and very easy, only really let down by basic instructions, so far so good.

In terms of features it offers silent cooling if you drop the RPM down, I've always been the kind of person who enjoys maximum cooling but by dropping this down to 40/60 % RPM you get a significant reduction in noise and even at full pelt it's pretty good.

Performance

So what am I getting for the extra pennies spent? 

Initial testing is very positive, I did some benchmarks and testings with my stock cooler in place. All testing was performed on a standard un-clocked system and at idle I was hitting around 50-51c with my stock cooler.  Under gaming stress it was hitting 56-60c.

With the Cooler Master Hyper TX3 fitted and at idle the core temperatures dropped down to between 38-40c and under stress this went up to 44c.

I also noticed across the board the motherboard temperature dropped as did the hard drives, presumably due to less heat escaping and being circulated around the system.

For such a small price tag this is very impressive improvement and I even noticed the heat being pumped out by the system fans was much cooler.

None of my tests did load the CPU to 100% but looking at benchmarks even if you stressed all 4 cores at 100% you would be lucky for it to push 70c, and at this price that is still very impressive.

It has to be said that obviously the temperature gains and noise will play off against each other, at maximum RPM and CPU load you are going to notice a difference to idle at 40% RPM so it will depend on your own personal requirements.

Conclusion

It has to be said, but it's hard to fault this entry level cooler based on the price and instant results.  If you are a hard core gamer topping out your CPU and looking to make that old CPU last a bit longer then this could be a good start.

On the whole it was quick and easy to install and has offered a vast drop in temperatures across the system. 

In terms of value for money, excellent. Simply put I think you will be hard pushed to find anything else for this price able to perform as well. For anyone on a budget wishing to get a bit more out of their system rather than an expensive upgrade this will be perfect.

It's compatibility does let it down slightly in terms of the most recent CPUs on the market and chip sets and it is easily out performed by the more expensive coolers, but for this price it is simply a no brain er.

• Installation: 4 / 5
• Compatibility: 3 / 5
• Performance: 3 / 5
• Value for Money: 5 / 5
• Overall: 3