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KitGuru recently tested the Coolit Vantage and it earned a high award from us, even if it didn't manage to best our current performance leader The Noctua NH D14 – or as we nicknamed it, the Austrian Sandwich. The Vantage is a fantastic cooler and much easier to work with, but for outright performance it fell a little short of the performance mark the NH D14 delivered in our labs.
We see no point today including 15 other coolers in the overclocked testing, we already know the NH D14 is the target that Corsair need to aim for to take the performance crown and the only way to properly test this is to crank the hell out of our Core i7 970 CPU – to over 4.5ghz with a core voltage increase of 0.25 volts. Lesser coolers will not handle this overclock and only the Vantage and the NH D14 delivered good enough results that we would be happy running this configuration 24/7. Lets be honest anyway, very few people spend £90-100 on a cooler to run at stock speeds.
As I said earlier this week, a few people have questioned how I get such great overclocks with some of the products in our labs and the only thing I can suggest is decades of experience. Many publications have said that their 970 i7 Intel chip struggles to hit 4ghz with most limited to 4.1ghz, but I have had two of these now able to hit 4.6ghz, abeit with slightly dangerous levels of voltage.
As the image above shows, to get a true indication of cooler performance our 970 is clocked to a level we can run 24/7 but with only the best consumer coolers on the market. For those of you who think the 4.5ghz+ OC might be photoshopped then please feel free to get online validation for yourself over here http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=1358922. No servers were hacked in the process.
Our Crucial Ballistic Tracer 1600mhz is running at 1900mhz at 1.65 volts. The FSB is 189×24 giving a total speed of 4536mhz. Prime is used for testing.
At reference clock speeds and voltages, everything looks very boring indeed with the Corsair H70 falling between the NH D14 and the Coolit Vantage by a single degree. Now we have a reference ball park to play with, lets get the big three coolers into the overclocked environment. Core speed is increased to 4.53 ghz with a voltage increase of 0.25 over reference.
Well this was closer than we thought, the Corsair H70 is only 2 degrees behind the Noctua NH D14 with the Vantage trailing by a further 5c. The Thermaltake frio sounds like a helicopter at high fan speeds so thankfully this test didn't last too long.
What happens if we decide to add a third fan to the Noctua NH D14?
Adding a third fan to the Noctua NH D14 lowered temperatures by a further 2c meaning the lead pulled out to 4c when compared with the Corsair H70 and 9c over the Vantage. Noctua really have built the best mainstream cooler on the market, bar none.
It is worth stopping for a minute to reflect – all of these temperatures are seriously impressive. The Cryo Nemesis we reviewed last month was running at the same speed as this 970 and it had a hardcore watercooling system in it. Corsair, Noctua and Coolit should be extremely proud of what they have achieved with such modest ‘mainstream' solutions.
fuck, what a review Zardon. great testing. and very good performance from all three coolers ! I will never be able to afford a CPU like that.
Awesome ! Still not able to knock the NH D14 off the top spot I see !
Very very good test idea, I love how you throw things on their head Zardon – what performance out of the noctua ! H70 did better than I thought
Christ, the test to end all tests. liked the section on air flow, that was very informative and I never thought about it like that either.
YEAH !!!! I have been waiting for this one, and I have to say, hand on heart, the results played out EXACTLY as I imagined they would. Great cooler from corsair and the price is a little steep, but still quite good.
Yeah baby. I need to get this cooler. the noctua NH D14 is still awesome, but its far too big for my case. I cant deal with that, especially the strain on the mobo long term, bound to cause damage and strained parts.
Absoultely brilliant review Kitguru, this is just what I wanted to see. not a clear win really for noctua, due to size.
Well its a clear win if you are only looking at performance figures !
Noctua NH D14 is incredible, but I agree, its ridiculously sized for most people.
Really thought this review was one of de best I have seen in a longe time. thanks you.
Incredible results for the Noctua NH D14 – had to laugh at the picture of it with 3 fans, its basically a chassis, inside a chassis!
Very good product from corsair again – this is a much better deal IMO than NH D14, its far too big to be sensible for most people. You get limited with memory selection too.
So – Noctua is £60, Corsair is £85 and Coolit is £105.
The cheapest performs the best, the middle performs middle best and the most expensive is the worst.
Its not quite as black n white as that, but its interesting.
I love the look of this corsair unit, the coolit one didnt appeal to me, you are paying 30 quid for the screen. I dont need a screen, I also dont need a heatsink the size of a small county in england.
Great review, was contemplating which one to get, now I know. but its a secret :p
Noctua have made such a damn good cooler, every site loves it. some sites dont test it against H70 so its good to see this. Very impressed with corsair unit however, the head is so small.
I might be alone in my thinking, but the noctua cooler scares me to look at. fitting it and putting such a strain on my 200 quid motherboard? the corsair seems best to me, but I like the noctua options and screen quality.
Very good testing, it puts things into a ‘im a rich bastard and have loads of money to spend, and I will also overclock the balls of my processor’ category. most of us will have a core i5 or AMD cpu and these will ALL run much cooler.
great review.
All of these are very expensive. even the noctua, although you are paying for the metal ! coolit is my favourite, Im probably in the minority. I dont need these insane overclocks, so I would say with a reasonable OC and a mid range cpu it would be awesome.
Noctua is just impossible to beat, but it seems such a brute force solution to me, make the biggest heatsink you can build and slap multiple fans on it.
Guess it works though !
Great review, found it on google, very helpful for my purchase. Corsair here I come !
This is a fantastic review Kitguru, bookmarked for another read tomorrow after work.
Nice review!! thumbs up – all 4 of them 😀
great idea for the review – all of the coolers seem really capable !
Amazed how good the corsair and noctua really are 🙂
Would there by any way to test this vs the Coolit Eco 240. This is a great review and I have been reading alot of them for the H70, Coolit Vantage, and the Eco 240 but have not seen this against the Eco 240 yet. I also have been in talks with Coolit about getting a custom Vantage 240 but don’t know if the price is worth the performance. Any Help or Guidance will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Another great review mate, I might consider the H70 when i decide to upgrade my system… 🙂
Now that’s what I’m talking about! So sick of these sites using the True120 for all their top air tests when the D14 is the ultimate air cooling…I didn’t even know 3 fans was possible I’ll have to give it a shot.
Hello just wondering how the hell you mount a H70 in a Antec p 193 case, I can hardly fit the H50 in it due to the big boy 200 mm side panal fan.
I moved the fan and radiator to the front of the case intake threw the front, Though I do not think I could fit a huge h70 that way either.
Yeah I have a P193 and I fitted one in mine, but I ditched the standard massive fan side door and ordered one without it.
I think comparing the H70 vs the Coolit Vantage could be reconsidered. The H70 comes with two 120mm fans (push-pull setup) while the Coolit Vantage comes with only one 120mm fan. The thing is the Coolit Vantage also has the capability of adding an additional 120mm fan for a similar push-pull setup. I’ve personally used the H70 and then converted to the Coolit Vanatge (with the extra fan added). Happy to say I achieved a decrease in temps by 3 degrees on an overclocked 965BE at 4.22ghz.
IMO get the Coolit, buy the additional fan and have the bonus of the digital display.
How much better is this cooler versus the H50?? Is it really much more powerful or is it comparable to the H50 plus another fan…? I am asking because a vendor I am thinking of buying from only carries either the H50 or the VANTAGE! I am wondering if it worth the trouble for me to buy after market and install it or just screw it and go with the H50 or Vantage.. 😀 What do you say guys…? Or just go with the Noctua — right? …jeje