Coolink Corator DS CPU Cooler Review

Today we are taking a look at the Coolink Corator DS, a CPU cooler which is not quite as mainstream as it looks. CPU coolers, or at least air-based coolers, have had a tendency to grow in size and in all dimensions. This is certainly no exceptions as this thing is huge and I would certainly take a gander at the weight as it is impressively over 1kg and that is just the product weight! The larger the heatsinks are in theory the more surface area you can have and as such more heat lost. Typically however, the fans are mounted on the side of the heatsink to push/pull air into the heatsink. In contrast the Corator has the fan located in the centre which means the heatsink is a lot bigger but does incorporate the fan. Whether this provides any benefit to the airflow through the system I am not so sure and hopefully our testing will prove either way.They certainly think highly of themselves and we hope that this product is as good as we expect. Specifications[TABLE=class: grid][TR][TD]Socket compatibility[/TD][TD]Intel LGA1366, LGA1156, LGA 1155, LGA775 & AMD AM2, AM2+, AM3 (backplate required)[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=width: 204]Mainboard compatibility[/TD][TD]Compatibility[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=width: 204]Height (with fan)[/TD][TD]155 mm[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=width: 204]Width (with fan)[/TD][TD]140 mm[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=width: 204]Depth (with fan)[/TD][TD]121 mm[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=width: 204]Weight (with fan)[/TD][TD]1040 g[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=width: 204]Material[/TD][TD]Copper (base and heat-pipes), aluminium (cooling fins)[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=width: 204]Fan size[/TD][TD]120x120x25 mm[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=width: 204]Fan[/TD][TD]Coolink SWiF2-120P[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=width: 204]Bearing[/TD][TD]high-performance hydro-dynamic bearing[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=width: 204]Rotational Speed (+/- 10%)[/TD][TD]800 - 1700 RPM[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=width: 204]Airflow[/TD][TD]60.4 - 127.6 mł/h[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=width: 204]Acoustical Noise[/TD][TD]8.5 - 27.1 dB/A[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=width: 204]Scope of Delivery[/TD][TD]Heatsink, SWiF2-120P Fan, Mounting Hardware (SecuFirm2 for AMD & Intel), Thermal Paste, English Manual[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=width: 204]Warranty[/TD][TD]5 years[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=width: 204]MSRP[/TD][TD] 49.90 / US$ 59.90[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=width: 204]EAN[/TD][TD]4716123313519[/TD][/TR][/TABLE]PackagingFrom the front we can see the product with an interesting background. This side doesn't tell us much about the product other than "30:40", "GDT" and it has a "fan". From this side it is not exactly clear what this represents. Moving round the box clockwise we come to the specifications which also have a handy diagram showing you the dimensions of the product visually. The back of the box shows us 2 pictures of the fan, 2 of the heatsink and 2 of the copper base. Finally the last side shows us the features, which does explain that "30:40" is the number of fins in each stack and GDT stands for Gapless Direct Touch technology. This for the first time has a paragraph in 2 other languages but it is clearly designed at the English-speaking markets. BundleAs it is a CPU cooler we don't expect it to come with much. We do however expect a good array of mounting kits to incorporate both AMD and Intel sockets. ContentsThe AMD kit consists of 4 screws, 4 spacers and two mounting brackets.The Intel kit consists of a backplate, a rubber inlay, 4 bolts, 2 mounting brackets, 4 spacers and 4 thumbscrews.These both come with installation manuals with good diagrams, making the install job fairly painless.Finally, instead of pre-applying thermal paste they have provided a 2g tube of Chillaramic thermal compound.A Closer LookNow taking a look at the heatsink we can see that it has 4 fairly large copper heatsinks coming out of the base and into the numerous fins. As you can see, in the right tower of the heatsink there are more fins than on the left tower. Supposedly this improves the heat transfer as the air flow is less restricted entering into the heatsink via the left-hand side. From the side you can see the metal clips used to hold the fan in place, a very simple method but it does work. Taking a look at the copper base, we can see it is extremely smooth and that the heatpipes are actually part of the copper block and as such are in direct contact with the CPU's heat spreader (or at least the thermal paste between the two). The fan they have used is the standard Coolink SWiF2-120P fan which can also be purchased separately. This fan unlike its competitors has blades that have been twisted round giving more of a spiral look to the fan.This is more what you would expect from a turbine than a case or CPU fan. Test SetupHere at eTeknix we always like to test products very thoroughly and today is no exception. Test System:AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black EditionAsus M4A785TD-M EvoCrucial 4GB DDR3 1600 MHzOCZ Vertex II 60GB SSDCooler Master Silencio Case + 600W PSUHardware Used:Sound Level MeterSoftware Used:HWMonitorPrime95Windows 7 Home Edition 64-bitFor this test we will try to benchmark this Corator DS cooler against one of its best air-based competitors, the Akasa Venom. While it might not be the best out there it is certainly one of the most popular as it offers a lot of cooling for your money, while looking good! For comparison only we will throw in the Antec 920 Liquid cooling system into the mix.We will be testing these three coolers with the CPU overclocked to 4.0 GHz by adjusting the CPU multiplier and increasing the voltage to keep it stable. We will let the computer idle for 10 minutes and record this temperature and then run the stress testing program Prime 95 for a full 20 minutes before recording this final temperature. This test will be repeated twice more to achieve a good average.At all times we will aim to keep the room temperature and on this occasion at a constant 22 degrees C.AcousticThe Ambient noise was measured at 25 dBA (This includes the computer being on just without the CPU Cooler fans running). Due to these CPU Coolers idling down to around 800 rpm we were not able to obtain an 'idle' acoustic level as it was little if any over the ambient noise. Therefore this reading was taken with both the coolers running at their maximum speeds. Not much separates these two with regards to the sound-level, the Coolink has a bit more of a whine about it when compared to the Akasa.TemperaturesAs we mentioned in the Test Setup my AMD Phenom X4 965 was overclocked to 4.0 GHz for these tests and so is certainly pumping out a lot of heat. We also used the same thermal paste for all 3 coolers. After 10 minutes we took an Idle temperature and after 20 minutes of stress testing we took a Load temperature. This was repeated to get the averages you can see below. The Corator DS comes close to matching the Akasa Venom but once again it is not quite as good. This may be surprising as the Corator DS is certainly a lot larger and does give a greater amount of surface area for heat to be lost. That said, the airflow through the Corator is not as good as the Akasa which shows just how critical the airflow can be to a cool system. Of course, neither come that close to touching the Antec 920 although considering the difference in costs they certainly aren't doing a bad job.Final ThoughtsWhile it didn't beat the Akasa Venom it did perform quite well and its rare we see a product priced in this bracket that can get close. Unfortunately the Akasa Venom is cheaper, smaller and does look better and for these reasons we can't give it the Gold award. That said, it is marginally quieter than the Akasa Venom.We think that the design of the Corator is very good, it looks like it should have a lot of potential but it just lacks the airflow from its one fan to really rival the Akasa Venom. Unfortunately, the Coolink Corator DS did also have a bit of a 'whine' when running at full speed which was slightly annoying to the ears, it was slightly quieter than the Akasa Venom but by such a small amount the whine probably cancels it out.If the Akasa Venom didn't exist we'd probably say this was a really good cooler, but we have to compare it to the rest of the market and it just doesn't perform for the extra cost, size and weight of the Corator.Pros:It does provide some very decent coolingIs fairly quiet even when compared to its competitorsVery well made and extremely solidCons:It is very largeIt weighs a whole 1kgCan be beaten by something smaller and cheaper Attached files 142_xkttirShAYXYWgZX_full.jpg (35.6 KB) 270420111036.jpg (140 KB) 270420111038.jpg (129.1 KB) 270420111043.jpg (119.8 KB) 270420111048.jpg (183.3 KB) 270420111052.jpg (118.4 KB) acoustics.jpg (53.5 KB) Acoustics.jpg (68.3 KB) DSCF1629.jpg (124.9 KB) DSCF1631.jpg (95.7 KB) DSCF1632.jpg (119.3 KB) DSCF1633.jpg (114 KB) DSCF1634.jpg (125.2 KB) DSCF1636.jpg (119.2 KB) silver.jpg (12.4 KB) Temps.jpg (68 KB) temps.jpg (66.1 KB)