Hello again! This post will be a continuation of sort to one of my previous post where I showcased my Ryzen 5 5600G based system for the first time. The reason for making it was that I was able to improve the thermal situation almost by surprise, why almost and by surprise? Because I actually was in possession of that cooler that was safely storage in a furniture but I completely forget about its existence until about ten days ago. So, why the title of “late review” well, since the Ryzen 5 5600G was launched in August of 2021 for general consume and this cooler dates back to 2019 for its original appearance, there is no much in the sense of reviews combining this two pieces of hardware.
I bought that cooler on August 6 of 2020, with the idea of improving the thermal situation of my old Phenom II X4 965, but when started to be clear that there was not much options to improve the actual performance of the system I started to doubt about install it. Combine that with some personal/family problems that popped their ugly heads around that time and the result was me completely forgetting that cooler when I started to think in building a new system. Add to that that was inside a furniture that we don´t use much and yeah… gone of existence according to my terrible memory. Ended remembering that I have it while I was checking some deals in coolers while frustrated thinking “damn, I cannot buy that Cooler Master right now” when my neurons decided to fire up some synapses and screamed “HEY YOU IDITIOT! YOU HAVE A BRAND NEW COOLER OVER THERE; GO A CHECK IT!!”.
So I went to pick up the box while slapping my forehead…
Here we have it, sorry for the pics from internet but I was so excited to test it out that I forget to take photos of the cooler until it was installed. I will add some comments to that later before somebody mentions a “small detail”.
To my luck the cooler was compatible with AM4 (I was thinking in AM2+ motherboard when I bought it) and since is rated for a much higher TDP (125 W, same as my Phenom) that the Ryzen 5 5600G (65 W) it should work well! Even if dealing with an APU like the 5600G can skew a bit your calculations.
I went to install it and oh… damn…
If you see the cooler sideways, you are going to see that a part overs the CPU block and extends a bit to one side. Since it was not thinking in this cooler when I picked up the motherboard, memory clearance regarding this particular low profile cooler was not in my priorities. The DDR4 memories I´m currently using are too tall for this cooler to be installed in its normal position, plus its hover above the last memory slot.
Solution? Since populating all the memory slots is far away on my list of priorities and luckly the mount solution for this cooler is symmetrical… mount it the other way around!! Yes, it’s going to block that last memory slot and in theory the heat pipes have to point out in the IO shield direction but I have to tried and see it I can forget about the thermals of my new system until much further down the road. I was a bit anxious using the stock cooler that was so borderline hot in some scenarios.
Time to do a lot of different test!
The initial test were just amazing!! A difference of 6.5 degrees (Cº) when comparing with my initial test with the original cooler if I run the multiple core test and not more than that in single core!!
I started to run several test, Benchmark single core and multiple core for long periods (10 minutes at least), idle, normal web browsing/office working and the results were also rather good! Even the idle situation improved greatly reaching a low 22 Cº.
Even processing the videos I record for the Citizen Science projects where I colaboratte showed a difference of at least 5 Cº less regarding to previous temps!
Time to increase the bets! Video edition is between my plans, so time to start again and try OBS in my new system! I tried it a couple of times on the old Phenom and… was not really worth it, that old processor just cannot record at the same time that is running some modern games in at a good frame rate. Enjoy some gameplay videos of a selection of games that I picked to run at the same time that MSI Afterburner to get a final good sense of the thermals with this cooler and “peculiar” installation.
Now let´s, just for fun, watch a video recorded with the old Phenom and OBS…
Yeah, the difference is quite noticeable! And better not to speak of the thermals if you can see that on the video, that CPU usually runs between 70 and 77 Cº when gamming since the cores have to work at 100% to run anything at medium/good quality, of course with the vital help of the GT 1030. Credits where credits are due, even for a stock cooler, that Cooler Master model that AMD ended choosing for those models was good enough to prevent the system of going nuclear and was enough to deliver a good gaming experience to me for several years.
Regarding cost, Aero Cool is a brand that is usually cheaper that bigger names like Cooler Master, the Cylon 3 (current model is 3H, I don´t see too much differences) is now around 60-80 US dollars here, sorry for the wide margin there but the price listing in Argentina is stupid and gets stupider by the day thanks to the rampant inflation and bad economy politics, so you can get scam very easily if you don´t look enough. At least, in my case since I bought mine in 2020 the cost back them was 32 US dollars, so I ended saving quite a bit by accident! "Consolation of fools" / "Consuelo de tontos" as we say over here to find something positive in bad situation of the country.
Also accidentally now the memories are not so alone in the RGB universe! lol I cannot control the light pattern since the header in that cooler is not compatible with the motherboard, but I don´t particularly care about that, it looks cool enough!
In conclusion, the Aero Cool Cylon 3 cooler can give another big brand models a run for their money with difference of between 8 and 5 degrees Cº less depending of the scenario, if you one of this around or maybe don´t have enough money to buy a bigger cooling solution, this model can get you out of the hot waters of the stock coolers! Just pay some mind to the fact that it needs some clearance to be installed in the proper way, even if in my test that didn´t affect the performance at all. It’s worth to notice that is currently almost winter for me, so the hot summer could present another scenario, but without a doubt I will be better prepared that just using the stock cooler!
See you all in the next post, time to return to retro!