Cooler Master Wraith Ripper TR4 Cooler Review

1. Introduction2. Unboxing and First Look3. Installation Procedure4. Testing Methodology5. Performance and Comparisons: AIDA646. Performance and Comparisons: Blender7. Performance and Comparisons: Cinebench + Noise8. Closing Thoughts9. View All Pages

Taken as a whole, the Cooler Master Wraith Ripper is a very good solution for keeping Threadripper temperatures under control, while looking aesthetically pleasing at the same time. Cooler Master and AMD's hard work designing this cooler has paid off.

During testing, the Wraith Ripper made easy work of cooling our 2950X CPU both at stock and overclocked frequencies. Its full cover thermal transfer plate made a noticeable improvement on temperature over the adapted Asetek AIO coolers we also tested.

Not only does the Wraith Ripper easily accomplish its primary objective of providing great thermal transfer, its sleek looks and RGB lighting make it an attractive addition to the system. With the option to configure the RGB lighting to suit your own style, there is no reason why the Wraith Ripper won't fit in with any theme – but if you prefer, the RGB can be turned off completely.

The installation of the Wraith Ripper is extremely simple. Using the stock TR4 mounting system is great, as it means no extra fiddly brackets or fixings are needed and makes the total installation time around 10 minutes. We are confident that even the most novice PC builder would be able to install the Wraith Ripper without any problems.

 

A large dual tower design as implemented in the Wraith Ripper can be challenging to pull off when so many possible configurations of system components determine the size and shape of the CPU cooler. RAM clearance is the biggest hurdle to overcome and as suggested earlier, with tall RAM installed this may be an issue for the Wraith Ripper as it doesn't offer much memory clearance.

While the Wraith Armour plastic shroud looks great, it does feel a little cheap, especially the matte finished areas. With very little effort, a small piece of a plastic fixing point easily snapped off during our review, which was a little disappointing.

One feature we would have liked to have seen would be an ARGB cable to connect the Wraith Ripper directly to an ARGB motherboard header. While the Cooler Master software is good and gives you plenty of options, it would have been better to have the option to sync the RGB lighting with the motherboard and other system components.

As we touched on earlier, the current price of around £100 seems a little high for an air cooler, when compared with others. We admit the performance is great, however, we feel slightly let down by the cheap feeling plastics and the other issues already highlighted and therefore would be a little apprehensive purchasing at this price.

With a relatively limited amount of large air coolers available specifically designed for Threadripper, the Wraith Ripper is certainly one of the best options available, especially when overclocking a CPU such as our 2950X or the 32 core 2990WX, which would really struggle with an adapted AIO or smaller air cooler.

The Cooler Master Wraith Ripper is available for £109.50 from Amazon HERE.

Pros

• Excellent thermal performance.
• Sleek design.
• Multiple ARGB lighting areas.
• Easy to install.

Cons

• Cheap feeling plastics.
• High cost.
• RAM clearance could be an issue.
• No ARGB motherboard header compatibility.

KitGuru says: With options limited when it comes to TR4 specific coolers, the Wraith Ripper is one of the best options for raw cooling performance, but it comes at a high price.

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