Best Hardware of 2015 – The KitGuru Editorial Awards

Cooling

Last year’s list included a GPU cooling solution, but the graphics card manufacturers have really raised their game in 2015, so we’re going to focus on CPU solutions with one winning for air and another for liquid cooling.  In the past, we’ve done system assembly videos which have utilised the stock coolers provided, then done a side-by-side comparison with popular options like the Arctic Cooling Freezer or Noctua NH-U12S.

The result has been dramatic under load, with the stock cooler regularly hitting around 100 degrees, while the Arctic dropped that to 70 and the Noctua achieved 65 degrees. Having a CPU run at 100 degrees or more is not a healthy state of affairs, while at the other end of the spectrum, the closer you get an overclocked Core i7 CPU to 50 degrees, the better the solution.

Air Cooler
When KitGuru completed a recent multi-cooler shoot-out feature, we managed to get two coolers to tie for top spot. Both the Deepcool Assassin II and the Phanteks PH-TC12DX kept our Core i7 4820K at 62 degrees, despite being clocked to 4.5GHz. But then we got to price and the winner became clear.

The Deepcool Assassin II was a penny under £70, but the Phanteks was only £39. If you want to keep the inside of your machine colour co-ordinated, it’s also worth noting that the Phanteks cooler comes in white, blue, red and black.

In standard use, the fan is near silent, but you will hear something when running a demanding game on an overclocked processor – assuming that you’re gaming in complete silence, without speakers or headphones. Phanteks supplies some useful mounting options and we found the cooler straightforward to install. Despite having a fan on either side, it was possible to mount the cooler and still have access to the memory slots.

KitGuru’s choice for the Best Air Cooler of 2015 goes to the Phanteks PH-TC12DX.

Liquid Cooler
In 1999, Edvard König got hold of his first PC and quickly realised that ‘passive’ and ‘air’ were not for him. Over the next 4 years, while he was studying, Edvard began working on water block prototypes – aptly named EK-1, EK-2 and EK-3.

From there grew one of the most respected specialist cooling companies in the world – EKWB. When KitGuru caught up with Petri Korhonen (AKA SF3D) in 2013, it was clear just how much care and attention goes into the EKWB product line up. When we heard that the company was getting into the all in one market with the Predator 240 and 360, we requested a sample into the KitGuru Lab.

We weren’t disappointed.

From the moment we opened the box, we could see that EKWB was playing a different game from most of the competitors in this sector of the market. In real terms, the pre-assembled/filled unit doesn’t really cost much less than building it yourself from EKWB parts that are available in the market, but then there’s the hassle factor.

Before looking at the test numbers, we just want to point out that if you have the ‘right kind of motherboard’, then fitting will take no time at all, but could be longer/more involved if you need to swap out mounting screws. Please note that this is an Intel only cooler.

With a price of £159, we put this EK-XLC Predator 240 up against the latest version of last year’s winner in this category – the Corsair H110i GT. In our test rig with a Core i7 4820K running at 4.5GHz, the Predator was a solid 5 degrees cooler than the Corsair.

Sure, it costs more, but you’re only going to be buying this if your rig is already maxed out in terms of CPU, SSD and graphics cards – so you’d unlikely to feel the extra £67. It isn’t cheap, but it is substantial, gorgeous and very effective.

KitGuru’s choice for the Best Water Cooling Solution in 2015 goes to the EK-XLC Predator 240.

Become a Patron!