AMD Wraith CPU Cooler (FX-8350) Review

Final Thoughts

Price

The AMD Wraith cooler cannot be purchased on its own so the pricing depends on which CPU you decide to buy. While it might seem a good idea to offer the cooler to loyal AMD fans wanting the revised design, it doesn’t make sense given the huge amount of alternatives on the market. It would be almost impossible for AMD to launch the cooler as a standalone and sell enough units while competing against popular models from Cooler Master, Raijintek and others. After speaking to AMD, they’ve confirmed that the Wraith cooler will replace the existing unit which enhances the CPU’s value proposition. The FX-8350 currently has a retail price around the £130-£150 mark and can be acquired from a number of leading stores including Overclockers UK.

Overview

AMD’s original stock CPU cooler really struggles to keep Bulldozer processors cool and utilises a fairly tame fan which runs at a blistering speed. This results in ridiculously loud operation during demanding tasks and makes your system almost impossible to use. Rather amusingly, I heard a family member enquire about what the sudden noise was which came from the fan despite being in another room. Evidently, the stock cooler is designed to be functional and cater towards mainstream PC owners who mostly browse the web and do other basic tasks. If you’re not gaming or running demanding applications then it has a useful purpose.

Thankfully, the Wraith cooler is a breath of fresh air (if you’ll excuse the awful pun), and the best stock cooler I’ve tested by a huge margin. More specifically, moving from the old cooler to the Wraith allows for a much quieter user experience and reduced temperatures. Unbelievably, the Wraith is quieter under load than the old cooler is at idle. This is astonishing and showcases the progress AMD have made in creating a professional, efficient low-cost cooler which they can bundle with various CPUs. The benchmarks clearly show that the Wraith is a wonderful piece of kit and it looks superb too. I’m particularly fond of the understated AMD logo and black plastic mould. On another note, the larger surface area and dense fin array contribute to exceptional thermal dissipation and explain the huge difference compared to the original model.

Please remember, it’s not going to match closed-looped coolers, high-end air cooling or even cheap air coolers, but it’s free with the purchase of a supported AMD processor. This makes it a huge improvement on both the older stock cooler and Intel’s awful push-pin CPU cooler. In theory, you could overclock a CPU like the FX-8350 and maintain good thermals, but it’s not really designed for that market. The Wraith is meant to finely balance noise and performance at stock values. I have to commend AMD for taking the brave step to include a stock cooler which many people would be happy to own. This bodes well for the future when the company releases Zen and I’m interested to see if the Wraith will make another appearance then.

Overall, the Wraith is a humongous improvement compared to every other stock cooler around and it feels like a third-party product you’ve had to pay extra money for. While it’s not going to cause a great deal of excitement from hardware enthusiasts, its arrival will provide a better user experience for consumers who simply buy a CPU and install it. Doing so, may encourage them to get into case modding, building and other areas of PC gaming.

Pros

• Attractive design
• Four copper heat pipes
• Gradual RPM fan curve
• Large copper base
• Lower temperatures
• Massive improvement compared to the old stock cooler
• Solid mounting hardware
• Sophisticated AMD LED logo
• Quiet under load

Cons

• None

“AMD have produced the best stock cooler available today by a country mile which emits very little noise and can easily cope with the rigorous thermal demands of a CPU like the FX-8350.”

AMD Wraith CPU Cooler (FX-8350) Review

Thank you AMD for providing us with this review sample.