1. Features, specs
| Manufacturer |
Coolink |
| Model |
|
| Price |
|
| Category |
Power users |
Most of you may be not very familiar with the 'CooLink' retail brand. However, you have seen many top-performing heat-sinks developed and manufactured by the company under various brand names that have succeeded in the worldwide market. 'CooLink' is the retail brand of Kolink International Corporation, a company which partners with Noctua for R&D. As you realize, we have great expectations about the 'Corator DS' CPU cooler we have today in our labs.
The Corator DS the latest and probably biggest cpu cooler from CooLink. The device is featuring Coolink's 'Gapless Direct Touch' (GDT) technology that allows for an all copper contact area. The company claims that the Corator DS brings the concept of direct contact cooling to the next level by further improving heat transfer: Four 8mm heatpipes, a dual fin stack design and a PWM controlled SWiF2 120mm fan are all contributing to an optimal balance between cooling performance and quiet operation. Let's hope that the measurements with the cooler installed on our test system will be also encouraging.
- Product features
- Four 8mm heatpipes
- Asymmetrical dual fin stacks
- Gapless Direct Touch technology
- SWiF2-120P high-performance 120mm fan
- PWM fan speed control
- SecuFirm 2 multi-socket mounting system
- Chillaramic thermal compound
- Full specifications
| Socket compatibility |
Intel LGA1366, LGA1156, LGA775 & AMD AM2, AM2+, AM3
(backplate required) |
| Mainboard compatibility |
Compatibility |
| Height (with fan) |
155 mm |
| Width (with fan) |
140 mm |
| Depth (with fan) |
121 mm |
| Weight (with fan) |
1040 g |
| Material |
Copper (base and heat-pipes), aluminium (cooling fins) |
| Fan size |
120x120x25 mm |
| Fan |
Coolink SWiF2-120P |
| Bearing |
high-performance hydro-dynamic bearing |
| Rotational Speed (+/- 10%) |
800 - 1700 RPM |
| Airflow |
60.4 - 127.6 mł/h |
| Acoustical Noise |
8.5 - 27.1 dB/A |
| Scope of Delivery |
Heatsink, SWiF2-120P Fan, Mounting Hardware (SecuFirm™2 for AMD & Intel), Thermal Paste, English Manual |
| Warranty |
5 years |
| MSRP |
€ 49.90 / US$ 59.90 |
| EAN |
4716123313519 |
2. Package, installation
Judging from the size of its package, the CooLink Corator DS CPU cooler should be large enough. It's retail price is about $55 - a rather high price for a CPU cooler. Although the cooler offers compatibility for all the currently sold CPU sockets from Intel and AMD, it' s cooling efficiency remains the basic factor that could make you choose it among the highly crowded market of the CPU coolers. The measurements later on will give us some answers... For now, let's have a closer look to the package and the device.
Besides the main cooler, the retail package includes two printed manuals for AMD/Intel systems, a pre-installed 120mm fan, the mounting brackets and Coolink's Chillaramic thermal compound.
It is recommended to have a quick look at the printed instructions before installing the cooler to your system. Of course, if you have already dealt with any Noctua CPU cooler in the past, the installation of the CooLink Corator DS will be very easy for you. CooLink has actually implementing Noctua's SecuFirm2 mounting system.
Below you can see the dimensions of the cooler. Although its height is typical for this category of coolers, its volume is large due to its dual heatsink design. The cooler uses a 120mm fan in between the heatsink towers:
The Corator DS has a large (155mm x 140mm x 121mm) heatsink that uses two symmetrical tower fin arrays interconnected via a series of four 8mm copper heat
-pipes. The heat-pipes run along the contact surface of the heatsink in what Coolink calls a 'Gapless Direct Touch technology.' Here, the gaps between the heat-pipes are filled with copper providing a single surface for a better conduction of heat:
The cooler's weight is around 1040gr. The installed green fan supports 800-1700 RPM and it is PWM controlled.
Installing this cpu cooler might take you some extra time if you are not familiar with the SecuFirm2 mounting system. The manual will make your life easier here so take some time and read it. The basic step is to place need to place the X-shaped mettallic backplate on the solder side of the motherboard with the four bolts into the correct set of holes, according to your motherboard (AMD/Intel). After that, you just need to apply thermal compound, put the cooler over the CPU and fasten both screws.
The procedure is similar to the one we followed when we tested the Noctua NH-D14 CPU cooler, so you may take a look there for detailed instructions.
Here is how our system looks like after installation. Although the cooler is big is should fit normally, unless you have installed any high cooling system to your memory modules.
3. How we test
For our tests we used an open air testbed with the following configuration:
- CPU: Intel Core7-920 Retail
- Case: Open Air testbed
- Motherboard: Asus P6T Deluxe Bios 1403
- Memory: 3x1GB Crucial PC3-1066
- PSU: OCZ 720W
- HDD: WD 80JB
- Operating system Windows XP with all the latest updates installed
- Software: OCCT v2.0.1 & CoreTemp 0.99.3
- Thermal Paste: Tuniq TX-2
- Idle time: ~30min
- Load time: ~30min
- The RPM speed controllable via SmartFan BIOS or via external hardware controller
We tried to produce the the highest possible temperature inside our test PC using the OCCT v2.0.1 software with a custom 30mins (mixed) operation.
We left both CPU cores running at full load for ~30 minutes. All
temperatures were logged using the CoreTemp 0.99.3 and the software. We also followed two overclocking scenarios:
- Intel Core i7-920 @ 2.66GHz
- Vcore: 1.1000V
- Other BIOS values: Auto
- Intel Core i7-920 @ 3.60GHz
- Vcore: 1.26250V
- DDR3 Voltage: 1.66V
- Other BIOS values: Auto
We measured the produced noise with a Precision
Gold N09AQ Environment Meter. All measurements were made at a distance of 30cm away from the cpu cooler running at full speed. For all the coolers we used the same thermal
compound from Tuniq, the TX-2.
4. Results
In the first test, our Intel Core i7-920 system was running at its stock speeds. As always, Intel's stock cpu cooler is the least efficient and under full load, the logged temperature reached the 58 degrees C. The CooLink Corator DS managed to lower the cpu temperature down to 45 degrees C, which is a very good performance. As you can see in the chart below, the CooLink Corator DS is among the top performers of the category of CPU coolers:
We pushed things a little bit and overclocked the Intel Core-i7 920 to 3.60GHz. The processor now produces more heat than previously and Intel's stock cooler could not keep the temperature lower than 90 degrees C. On the other hand, the CooLink Corator DS kept the CPU's temperature down to 61degrees C. The Tuniq Tower 120 Extreme, ProlimaTech Megahalems and Titan Fernir coolers had also given the same result. Compared to the NH-D14 from Noctua, the NH-D14 from Noctua, fell three degrees Celsius short:
Let's do now some noise measurements. The CooLink Corator DS produced around 48dB of noise measured from a distance of 30cm with the fan spinning at full speed. This is an average performance compared to the rest of the coolers we have tested so far. Of course, the supported PWM function can be used in to make the cooler less noisy:
Available at $55, the CooLink Corator DS is a little bit pricey, at least compared to other solutions:
5. Final words
The Coolink Corator DS delivers a respectable performance. At stock speeds and voltages, the Corator DS was among the top performers among the coolers we have tested so far. It seems that its two-tower design coupled with the 120mm fan also met in the respectable NH-D14 solution from Noctua did a a great job here. On the other hand, when the CPU is overclocked, the cooler's single-fan design did not allow it to deliver a top performance. The cooler remained quite efficient but it fell short of the temperatures reached by other high-end cooling solutions we compared it to. For example, the NH-D14 showed off its cooling prowess with the use of a second fan. We strongly believe that this product would highly benefit from an additional fan.
Regarding noise, the cooler is on an average category. It was quiet when the CPU is idle and a little noisy when it is under full load. Not much to add here, except from the fact that the PWM function is available to help you make the cooler less noisy.
So the Cooling Corator DS will not give you exactly the performance of a NH-D14 but it remains an efficient cooler priced much lower than Noctua's high-end solution.
In terms of pure performance, the Corator DS is generally quite competitive and will cover your needs for cooling. On the other hand, if you have to spend less than the$55 required for the Corator DS, you should look for other solutions. There many coolers with better cost/performance options out there for sure.
| Retail package |
|
| Design |
|
| Motherboard compatibility |
|
| Installation time |
|
| Copper Base quality |
|
Pros:
+ Great retail package
+ Very Good performance either with stock/overclocked processor
+ Installed fan has PWM function
+ Works with all currently sold processor sockets (AMD/Intel)
+ Easy to use mounting system
+ 5 years of warranty
Cons:
- Only one fan can be installed
- Big volume may cause problems with passive cooled memory modules or small cases
- Relatively high price
- Average noise levels at full speed