Gelid Solutions Black Edition CPU Cooler Review

The mounting kit is very simple to use. You attach the insulated backplate to the motherboard, install either Intel or AMD mounting brackets and then secure the heatsink to those brackets. You have to remove the central fan to install the heatsink. Reinstalling the central fan with the provided fan clips is no simple procedure. Once the fan is in place there is no space to manoeuvre the fan clips into the holes so you have to have both fan clips installed on the fan as you push it into place. However, the fan clips are only too quick to pop back out again and thus I would argue that the fan mounting mechanism could be a lot simpler.

The included accessories are very good. You get six fan clips for mounting three fans and a fan splitter cable so you can save one of those precious 4 pin fan headers on your motherboard. My favourite inclusion is the GC-Extreme thermal paste. This is probably the best thermal paste on the entire market and consequently we use it with all our CPU coolers for testing consistency purposes. On its own that tube of thermal paste would cost you about £5-10 to get.

From the top of the mount you can see the Gelid Black Edition does actually block a RAM slot which is slightly disappointing to see. However, it is still a pretty cool looking product and most gamers would be happy to have a CPU cooler like this in their system.

The Black Edition is well elevated enough to avoid any interference with motherboard components which is always good to see.

RAM compatibility is a mixed bag. We can see the use of the slim fan means only one RAM slot is blocked, this means if you only have a pair of high profile modules (like we have below) then you will be able to use them fine. However, if you intend to populate all your RAM slots then you’re going to need some low profile modules.