Prolimatech Genesis CPU Cooler Review

[nextpage title=”Introduction”]

Which do you prefer, tower coolers or horizontal coolers? Well, Prolimatech Genesis has the best of both worlds, with two independent heatsinks, one vertical and one horizontal, connected by six heatpipes. It supports two 120 mm or 140 mm fans. Let’s check it out.

The Genesis box is made of cardboard, in beautiful white and green shades, as illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Package

Figure 2 shows what comes with the cooler: Manual, thermal grease, and installation hardware. The Genesis doesn’t come with fans, so you will need to buy two 120 mm or 140 mm fans. The heatsink also supports a third fan, but you must buy separately the wire clips to hold it, since it comes with only two sets of holders.

Figure 2: Accessories

Figure 3 displays the Prolimatech Genesis heatsink. It combines the well-known performance of a tower heatsink and the motherboard component (mostly memories) cooling found on horizontal heatsinks.

Figure 3: The Prolimatech Genesis

This cooler is discussed in detail in the following pages.

[nextpage title=”The Prolimatech Genesis”]

Figure 4 reveals the cooler from the front, where you see the tips of the six heatpipes. Figure 5 exhibits the cooler by the side. Note the shape of the heatpipes.

Figure 4: Front view

Figure 5: Side view

Figure 6 shows the rear of the cooler. Notice that the heatpipes are well distributed inside the tower heatsink.

Figure 6: Rear view

Figure 7 presents the top of the heatsink.

Figure 7: Top view

[nextpage title=”The Prolimatech Genesis (Cont’d)”]In Figure 8, you see the Genesis from the bottom. There is a copper layer under the heatpipes.

Figure 8: Bottom

Figure 9 reveals the base of the cooler. Is has a near-mirrored aspect.

Figure 9: Base

As the Prolimatech Genesis doesn’t come with fans, we tested it with two Xigmatech XLF-F1453 fans (140 mm, 1000 rpm, 63.5 cfm), shown in Figure 10.

Figure 10: Fans

Figure 11 illustrates the Prolimatech Genesis with the fans installed. Please keep in mind that the results of our tests reflect the performance of this cooler with those fans; if you use different fans, you will probably get different performance.

Figure 11: With the fans installed

[nextpage title=”Installation”]

Figure 12 shows the hardware used to install the Genesis on AMD systems. In Figure 13, you see the backplate and the nuts that go on the solder side of the motherboard on Intel CPUs.

Figure 12: AMD clip

Figure 13: Intel backplate and nuts

Figure 14 illustrates the holding bars installed on our motherboard. After this step, all you need to do is to put the cooler in place and attach two screws ona third bar that secures the cooler.

Figure 14: Holding system installed

In Figure 15, you can see the Prolimatech Genesis installed into our case.

Figure 15: Installed in our system

[nextpage title=”How We Tested”]

We tested the cooler with a Core i7-860 CPU (quad-core, 2.8 GHz), which is a socket LGA1156 processor with a 95 W TDP (Thermal Design Power). In order to get higher thermal dissipation, we overclocked it to 3.3 GHz (150 MHz base clock and 22x multiplier), keeping the standard core voltage (Vcore), which was the maximum stable overclock we could make with the stock cooler. Keep in mind that we could have raised the CPU clock more, but to include the stock cooler in our comparison, we needed to use this moderate overclock.

We measured noise and temperature with the CPU idle and under full load. In order to get 100% CPU usage in all threads, 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 the Intel stock cooler with a copper base (included with the CPU), as well as with other coolers. Note that in the past, we tested coolers with a socket LGA775 CPU, and 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 in the next page. Every cooler was tested with the thermal compound that accompanies 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 left panel of the case was open.

The sound pressure level (SPL) was measured with a digital noise meter, with its sensor placed 4" (10 cm) from the fan. We turned off the case and video board cooler fans so they wouldn’t interfere with the results. 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 isn’t the case here.

Hardware Configuration

• Processor: Core i7-860
• Motherboard: Gigabyte P55A-UD6
• Memory: 2 GB Markvision (DDR3-1333/PC3-10700 with 9-9-9-22 timings), configured at 1,200 MHz
• Hard disk: Seagate Barracuda XT 2 TB
• Video card: Zotac GeForce GTS 250
• Video resolution: 1680×1050
• Video monitor: Samsung Syncmaster 2232BW Plus
• Power supply: Seventeam ST-550P-AM
• Case: 3RSystem L-1100 T.REX Cool

Operating System Configuration

• Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit

Software Used

• Prime95
• SpeedFan

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 idle and 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 minimum speed on the idle test and at full speed on the full load test.

		Idle Processor			Processor at Full Load
Cooler	Room Temp.	Noise	Speed	Core Temp.	Noise	Speed	Core Temp.
Intel stock (socket LGA1156)	14 °C	44 dBA	1700 rpm	46 °C	54 dBA	2500 rpm	90 °C
Cooler Master Hyper TX3 G1	14 °C	47 dBA	2050 rpm	33 °C	56 dBA	2900 rpm	62 °C
Zalman CNPS10X Extreme	14 °C	45 dBA	1400 rpm	27 °C	53 dBA	1950 rpm	51 °C
Thermaltake Silent 1156	14 °C	44 dBA	1200 rpm	38 °C	49 dBA	1750 rpm	69 °C
Noctua NH-D14	14 °C	49 dBA	1250 rpm	27 °C	49 dBA	1250 rpm	53 °C
Zalman CNPS10X Performa	14 °C	46 dBA	1500 rpm	28 °C	52 dBA	1950 rpm	54 °C
Prolimatech Megahalems	14 °C	40 dBA	750 rpm	27 °C	60 dBA	2550 rpm	50 °C
Thermaltake Frio	14 °C	46 dBA	1450 rpm	27 °C	60 dBA	2500 rpm	50 °C
Prolimatech Samuel 17	14 °C	40 dBA	750 rpm	40 °C	60 dBA	2550 rpm	63 °C
Zalman CNPS8000A	18 °C	43 dBA	1400 rpm	39 °C	54 dBA	2500 rpm	70 °C
Spire TherMax Eclipse II	14 °C	55 dBA	2200 rpm	28 °C	55 dBA	2 200 rpm	53 °C
Scythe Ninja3	17 °C	39 dBA	700 rpm	32 °C	55 dBA	1800 rpm	57 °C
Corsair A50	18 °C	52 dBA	1900 rpm	33 °C	52 dBA	1900 rpm	60 °C
Thermaltake Jing	18 °C	44 dBA	850 rpm	34 °C	49 dBA	1300 rpm	60 °C
GlacialTech Alaska	18 °C	43 dBA	1150 rpm	36 °C	51 dBA	1600 rpm	60 °C
Deepcool Gamer Storm	18 °C	43 dBA	1100 rpm	35 °C	48 dBA	1600 rpm	62 °C
Corsair A70	26 °C	56 dBA	1900 rpm	40 °C	56 dBA	1900 rpm	65 °C
Deepcool Ice Blade Pro	23 °C	45 dBA	1200 rpm	38 °C	52 dBA	1500 rpm	64 °C
AC Freezer 7 Pro Rev. 2	23 °C	47 dBA	1750 rpm	44 °C	51 dBA	2100 rpm	77 °C
Corsair H70	27 °C	60 dBA	1900 rpm	37 °C	60 dBA	1900 rpm	61 °C
Zalman CNPS9900 Max	27 °C	55 dBA	1600 rpm	38 °C	58 dBA	1750 rpm	63 °C
Arctic Cooling Freezer 11 LP	25 °C	45 dBA	1700 rpm	51 °C	49 dBA	1950 rpm	91 °C
CoolIT Vantage	26 °C	60 dBA	2500 rpm	37 °C	60 dBA	2500 rpm	62 °C
Deepcool Ice Matrix 600	25 °C	46 dBA	1100 rpm	41 °C	53 dBA	1300 rpm	69 °C
Titan Hati	26 °C	46 dBA	1500 rpm	40 °C	57 dBA	2450 rpm	68 °C
Arctic Cooling Freezer 13	27 °C	49 dBA	1950 rpm	41 °C	53 dBA	2300 rpm	70 °C
Noctua NH-C14	26 °C	52 dBA	1300 rpm	37 °C	52 dBA	1300 rpm	61 °C
Intel XTS100H	26 °C	49 dBA	1200 rpm	42 °C	64 dBA	2600 rpm	68 °C
Zalman CNPS5X SZ	23 °C	52 dBA	2250 rpm	38 °C	57 dBA	2950 rpm	69 °C
Thermaltake SlimX3	21 °C	50 dBA	2700 rpm	46 °C	50 dBA	2750 rpm	99 °C
Cooler Master Hyper 101	21 °C	50 dBA	2600 rpm	38 °C	57 dBA	3300 rpm	71 °C
Antec Kühler H2O 620	19 °C	52 dBA	1400 rpm	34 ° C	55 dBA	1400 rpm	58 °C
Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 Pro	20 °C	46 dBA	1100 rpm	36 °C	49 dBA	1300 rpm	62 °C
GlacialTech Siberia	22 °C	49 dBA	1400 rpm	34 °C	49 dBA	1400 rpm	61 °C
Evercool Transformer 3	18 °C	46 dBA	1800 rpm	33 °C	51 dBA	2250 rpm	65 °C
Zalman CNPS11X Extreme	20 °C	51 dBA	1850 rpm	34 °C	56 dBA	2050 rpm	61 °C
Thermaltake Frio OCK	15 °C	44 dBA	1000 rpm	27 °C	64 dBA	2200 rpm	51 °C
Prolimatech Genesis	18 °C	49 dBA	1050 rpm	30 °C	49 dBA	1050 rpm	54 °C

In the graph below, at full load 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.

[nextpage title=”Main Specifications”]

The main specifications for the Prolimatech Genesis CPU cooler include:

• Application: Sockets 775, 1155, 1156, 1366, AM3, AM2+, and AM2 processors
• Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.7 x 6.3 inches (216.5 x 146 x 160 mm) (W x L x H)
• Fins: Aluminum
• Base: Nickel-plated copper
• Heat-pipes: Six nickel-plated copper heatpipes
• Fan: Two 120 or 140 mm fans (not included)
• Nominal fan speed: 1000 rpm (for the fans used)
• Fan air flow: 63.5 cfm (for the fans used)
• Maximum power consumption: Not informed
• Nominal noise level: 16 dBA (for the fans used)
• Weight: 1.76 lbs (800 g) without fans
• More information: https://www.prolimatech.com
• Average price in the US: We didn’t find this cooler being sold in the US

[nextpage title=”Conclusions”]

Many people like tower coolers because they have shown, until now, the best cooling performance for the CPU. Horizontal coolers have the advantage of air being blown in the direction of the motherboard, which helps to cool the memory modules, chipset, and transistors of the voltage regulator circuit. The Prolimatech Genesis is designed to provide both advantages.

The cooling performance is great, equivalent to the best coolers we tested so far. Keep in mind, however, that the Genesis reached a top cooling performance even with silent fans; it probably can overperform its competitors if you use high-rpm fans instead.

The Prolimatech Genesis is a great cooler, with great functionality, great performance, and great look. That’s why it receives the Hardware Secrets Golden Award.