Strapped for cash but still on the lookout
for a well-built, third-party tower CPU cooler, that does a decent, quiet
cooling job? Well, your choices up until now have been pretty limited. Just recently,
though, Cooler Master launched a couple of new budget tower coolers to widen
that choice, one of which is the cool-sounding Blizzard T2.
Cooler
Master Blizzard T2
The T2 is a compact tower cooler which uses
an odd-looking dual looped heat pipe arrangement which surprise, surprise –
Cooler Master has patented as the ‘Dual-Loop’ design. It fits Intel’s 1156,
1155 and 775 sockets as well as AMD’s FM1, AM3+, AM3 and AM2.
It’s a measure of how used to something you
can get that the Blizzard’s simple, Dual Loop cooling system makes it really
stand out, simply due to how odd it looks especially against the norm of having
cooling pipes terminating just proud atop the cooling fin matrix. By using this
design, Cooler Master has got all four ends of the dual 0.6mm copper loops to
terminate at the base of the cooler, with all the pipes being flattened to
allow them to make direct contact with the top of your CPU.
Blade runner
The heat pipes pass through a 42-finned
aluminium heat sink and are cooled by one of cooler Master’s own 92mm Blade
Master, rifle-bearing fans. It spins at 2,200rpm at full tilt, when it becomes
a bit noisy, but when the cooler is not being pushed the fan is relatively
quiet.
After all the coolers that we’ve seen
lately that need a plate fixing under the motherboard, it makes a nice change
to report that the Blizzard T2 uses the standard Intel push pins. All you have
to do is screw the mounting brackets holding the pins to the base of the cooler
with the four wee screws provided.
For AMD owners, the cooler comes with an
equally simple mounting bracket. You also get some thermal compound and a
multi-lingual instruction pamphlet in the basic package.
To test the Blizzard T2, we mounted it on
an Intel i7-3770K running at its default clock speed of 3.5GHz. We ran it for
20 minutes while the system was in idle, taking an average temperature of the
four cores as measured by the Real Temp utility. Then, to stress test it, we
ran Prime 95’s small FFTs test for 20 minutes to get the CPU running at 100 per
cent, again using Real Temp to take an average of the four cores. Then to
really put the cooler through the mill, we overclocked the i7 to 4.5GHz and
re-ran all the tests. Which is when the fun really started.
At idle it was okay at 30oC, but
as soon as we maxed the CPU to 100 per cent, the temperature of the cores
climbed past the 100oC mark in less than a minute. It kept climbing
to the 3770K’s TJMax at 105oC before throttling back when we stopped
the test not a cooler for overclocking then. But at $20 we’re not taking about
a crazy enthusiast-class cooler for the OC crowd, this is a bargain-priced CPU
cooler that does the business at stock speeds. And in that it’s impressive, if
uninspiring.
Technical analysis
With just a twin heat pipe design, it’s not
really surprising that the Blizzard wasn’t up to the job of keeping the
overclocked i7 anywhere near cool enough but then that’s not really what it’s
for. It’s designed to keep value and mainstream processors cool at stock speeds
on a tight budget.
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Vital
Statistics
·
Price: $20
·
Manufacturer: Cooler Master
·
Website: www.coolermaster.com
·
Cooling type: Air, active
·
Fans: 1 x 92mm
·
Socket support: LGA1156, LGA1155, LGA775, FM1,
AM3+, AM3, AM2
·
Radiator construction: Aluminium
·
Max noise: 30dBA
·
Dimensions: 93 x 80 x 140mm
·
Weight: 340g
Verdict
·
Features: 6/10
·
Performance: 6/10
·
Value: 8/10
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