[nextpage title=”Introduction”]
Let´s test the Deepcool Neptwin, a CPU cooler with two tower heatsinks, six heatpipes, and two 120 mm fans. Check it out!
The Neptwin comes in a tall cardboard box, as seen in Figure 1.
Figure 2 shows the contents of the box: heatsink, fans, a small tube of thermal compound, manuals, fan connector splitter, and installation hardware. The Neptwin comes with two fans, but there are wire holders for up to three fans.
Figure 3 displays the heatsink of the Deepcool Neptwin.
Figure 3: The Neptwin heatsink
This cooler is discussed in detail on the following pages.
[nextpage title=”The Neptwin”]
Figure 4 illustrates the front of the heatsink. The six heatpipes are distributed at the sides of the heatsink, which is the area that receives the most airflow.
Figure 5 reveals the side of the cooler. Here you can see the two independent heatsinks.
In Figure 6, you can see the top of the cooler. The fins are almost rectangular, and the tips of the heatpipes are exposed.
[nextpage title=”The Neptwin (Cont’d)”]
Figure 7 illustrates the base of the cooler. The heatpipes don’t touch the CPU directly; there is a nickel-plated copper plate at the base, soldered to the heatpipes. The base surface is perfectly mirrored.
Figure 8 reveals the 120 mm fans that come with the reviewed cooler. One of them supports PWM speed control, while the other one has a three-pin connector, which means it is not PWM compatible.
Figure 9 shows the Deepcool Neptwin with the fans in place.
Figure 10 illustrates the fan connector hub, which allows you to connect up to four fans in a single motherboard fan header.
[nextpage title=”Installation”]
The first step of the installation of the Neptwin is to prepare the backplate. You must install the four screws in the holes that match your CPU socket, holding it in place with rubber pieces that also act as insulators. Figure 11 shows the backplate with the screws installed in the socket LGA1155 position.
Figure 11: Backplate with screws
Locate the backplate in the solder side of the motherboard, install four plastic spacers, and then the metal bars shown in Figure 12, securing them with four nuts.
Put the cooler in, holding it with a transversal bar. Notice that the first fan was located over all of our memory modules.
The last step is to install the second fan, as shown in Figure 14.
Figure 14: Installation finished
[nextpage title=”How We Tested”]
We tested the cooler with a Core i5-2500K CPU (quad-core, 3.3 GHz), which is a socket LGA1155 processor with a 95 W TDP (Thermal Design Power). In order to get higher thermal dissipation, we overclocked it to 4.0 GHz (100 MHz base clock and x40 multiplier), with 1.3 V core voltage (Vcore). This CPU was able to reach 4.8 GHz with its default core voltage, but at this setting, the processor enters thermal throttling when using mainstream coolers, reducing the clock and thus the thermal dissipation. This could interfere with the temperature readings, so we chose to maintain a moderate overclocking.
We measured noise and temperature with the CPU under full load. In order to get 100% CPU usage in all cores, we ran Prime 95 25.11 with the “In-place Large FFTs” option. (In this version, the software uses all available threads.)
We compared the tested cooler to other coolers we already tested, and to the stock cooler that comes with the Core i5-2500K CPU. Note that the results cannot be compared to measures taken on a different hardware configuration, so we retested some “old” coolers with this new methodology. This means you can find different values in older reviews than the values you will read on the next page. Every cooler was tested with the thermal compound that comes with it.
Room temperature measurements were taken with a digital thermometer. The core temperature was read with the SpeedFan program (available from the CPU thermal sensors), using an arithmetic average of the core temperature readings.
During the tests, the panels of the computer case were closed. The front and rear case fans were spinning at minimum speed in order to simulate the “normal” cooler use on a well-ventilated case. We assume that is the common setup used by a cooling enthusiast or overclocker.
The sound pressure level (SPL) was measured with a digital noise meter, with its sensor placed near the top opening of the case. This measurement is only for comparison purposes, because a precise SPL measurement needs to be made inside an acoustically insulated room with no other noise sources, which is not the case here.
Hardware Configuration
- Processor: Core i5-2500K
- Motherboard: ASUS Maximus IV Extreme-Z
- Memory: 6 GB OCZ (DDR3-1600/PC3-12800), configured at 1,600 MHz and 8-8-8-18 timings
- Hard disk: Seagate Barracuda XT 2 TB
- Video card: Point of View GeForce GTX 460 1 GB
- Video resolution: 1920×1080
- Video monitor: Samsung SyncMaster P2470HN
- Power supply: Seventeam ST-550P-AM
- Case: Cooler Master HAF 922
Operating System Configuration
- Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit SP1
Software Used
Error Margin
We adopted a 2°C error margin, meaning temperature differences below 2°C are considered irrelevant.
[nextpage title=”Our Tests”]
The table below presents the results of our measurements. We repeated the same test on all coolers listed below. Each measurement was taken with the CPU at full load. In the models with a fan supporting PWM, the motherboard controlled the fan speed according to core load and temperature. On coolers with an integrated fan controller, the fan was set at the full speed.
Cooler | Room Temp. | Noise | Speed | Core Temp. | Temp. Diff. |
Cooler Master Hyper TX3 | 18 °C | 50 dBA | 2850 rpm | 69 °C | 51 °C |
Corsair A70 | 23 °C | 51 dBA | 2000 rpm | 66 °C | 43 °C |
Corsair H100 | 26 °C | 62 dBA | 2000 rpm | 64 °C | 38 °C |
EVGA Superclock | 26 °C | 57 dBA | 2550 rpm | 67 °C | 41 °C |
NZXT HAVIK 140 | 20 °C | 46 dBA | 1250 rpm | 65 °C | 45 °C |
Thermalright True Spirit 120 | 26 °C | 42 dBA | 1500 rpm | 82 °C | 56 °C |
Zalman CNPS12X | 26 °C | 43 dBA | 1200 rpm | 71 °C | 45 °C |
Zalman CNPS9900 Max | 20 °C | 51 dBA | 1700 rpm | 62 °C | 42 °C |
Titan Fenrir Siberia Edition | 22 °C | 50 dBA | 2400 rpm | 65 °C | 43 °C |
SilenX EFZ-120HA5 | 18 °C | 44 dBA | 1500 rpm | 70 °C | 52 °C |
Noctua NH-L12 | 20 °C | 44 dBA | 1450 rpm | 70 °C | 50 °C |
Zalman CNPS8900 Extreme | 21 °C | 53 dBA | 2550 rpm | 71 °C | 50 °C |
Gamer Storm Assassin | 15 °C | 48 dBA | 1450 rpm | 58 °C | 43 °C |
Deepcool Gammaxx 400 | 15 °C | 44 dBA | 1500 rpm | 60 °C | 45 °C |
Cooler Master TPC 812 | 23 °C | 51 dBA | 2350 rpm | 66 °C | 43 °C |
Deepcool Gammaxx 300 | 18 °C | 43 dBA | 1650 rpm | 74 °C | 56 °C |
Intel stock cooler | 18 °C | 41 dBA | 2000 rpm | 97 °C | 79 °C |
Xigmatek Praeton | 19 °C | 52 dBA | 2900 rpm | 83 °C | 64 °C |
Noctua NH-U12P SE2 | 18 °C | 42 dBA | 1300 rpm | 69 °C | 51 °C |
Deepcool Frostwin | 24 °C | 46 dBA | 1650 rpm | 78 °C | 54 °C |
Thermaltake Frio Advanced | 13 °C | 56 dBA | 2000 rpm | 62 °C | 49 °C |
Xigmatek Dark Knight Night Hawk Edition | 9 °C | 48 dBA | 2100 rpm | 53 °C | 44 °C |
Thermaltake Frio Extreme | 21 °C | 53 dBA | 1750 rpm | 59 °C | 38 °C |
Noctua NH-U9B SE2 | 12 °C | 44 dBA | 1700 rpm | 64 °C | 52 °C |
Thermaltake WATER2.0 Pro | 15 °C | 54 dBA | 2000 rpm | 52 °C | 37 °C |
Deepcool Fiend Shark | 18 °C | 45 dBA | 1500 rpm | 74 °C | 56 °C |
Arctic Freezer i30 | 13 °C | 42 dBA | 1350 rpm | 63 °C | 50 °C |
Spire TME III | 8 °C | 46 dBA | 1700 rpm | 70 °C | 62 °C |
Thermaltake WATER2.0 Performer | 11 °C | 54 dBA | 2000 rpm | 49 °C | 38 °C |
Arctic Alpine 11 PLUS | 11 °C | 45 dBA | 2000 rpm | 82 °C | 71 °C |
be quiet! Dark Rock 2 | 10 °C | 41 dBA | 1300 rpm | 58 °C | 48 °C |
Phanteks PH-TC14CS | 16 °C | 47 dBA | 1300 rpm | 58 °C | 42 °C |
Phanteks PH-TC14PE | 16 °C | 48 dBA | 1300 rpm | 57 °C | 41 °C |
SilverStone HE01 (Q) | 19 °C | 44 dBA | 1150 rpm | 63 °C | 44 °C |
SilverStone HE01 (P) | 20 °C | 57 dBA | 2050 rpm | 62 °C | 42 °C |
Thermaltake WATER2.0 Extreme (S) | 17 °C | 44 dBA | 1250 rpm | 52 °C | 35 °C |
Thermaltake WATER2.0 Extreme (E) | 17 °C | 53 dBA | 1900 rpm | 50 °C | 33 °C |
Deepcool Neptwin | 11 °C | 46 dBA | 1500 rpm | 56 °C | 45 °C |
In the graph below, you can see how many degrees Celsius hotter the CPU core is than the air outside the case. The lower this difference, the better is the performance of the cooler.
In the graph below, you can see how many decibels of noise each cooler makes.
[nextpage title=”Main Specifications”]
The main specifications for the Deepcool Neptwin CPU cooler include:
- Application: Sockets 775, 1155, 1156, 1366, 2011, AM2, AM2+, AM3, AM3+, and FM1 processor
- Dimensions: 5.4 x 5.0 x 6.3 inches (136 x 126 x 159 mm) (W x L x H)
- Fins: Aluminum
- Base: Nickel-platec copper
- Heat-pipes: Six 6-mm copper heatpipes
- Fan: Two, 120 mm
- Nominal fan speed: 1,500 rpm / 1,300 rpm
- Fan air flow: 60.29 cfm / 53.65 cfm
- Power consumption: 1.92 W + 1.56 W
- Nominal noise level: 32.1 dBA / 26.6 dBA
- Weight: 2.44 Lbs (1.11 kg)
- More information: https://www.deepcool-us.com/
- MSRP in the U.S.: USD 60.00
[nextpage title=”Conclusions”]
The Deepcool Neptwin is a very well-made, high-quality cooler. It is beautiful&nb
sp;and seems to be very sturdy. It has good cooling performance combined with quiet operation.
The Neptwin also has a flexible installation. You can install it with two fans as we did, but you can install only one fan at the middle (if you experience compatibility issues with memory modules), with one fan at the middle and the other one at the rear side, or even with three fans. You can also, of course, replace the stock fans for more powerful ones (sacrificing the silence for better performance).
Because of its good look, quality, low noise level, and performance, the Deepcool Neptwin gets the Hardware Secrets Silver Award.
Leave a Reply