Prolimatech Samuel 17 Low Profile CPU Cooler Review

Prolimatech’s Samuel 17 low profile HTPC CPU cooler costs around £32.99 in the UK and €40 in Europe. At this price you still have to consider you will need to supply your own 120mm fan which will cost you another £5-10 depending on what kind of 120mm fan you actually buy. That said the price is more like £40 or €50 which easily puts this in competition with both the Noctua NH-L12 and and Scythe Big Shuriken 2, although you can buy Samuel 17 CPU coolers pre-fitted with fans at Overclockers UK for as low as £37 which is a pretty good deal. Furthermore it is also priced close to the NT06 Pro though the Samuel 17 is much smaller so these two aren’t strictly comparable. The Gelid Slim Hero is also an honourable mention as it performs close, within a couple of degrees at equivalent noise levels, yet costs around half the price and is the same size if not a bit smaller.

I think it is clear already then that I am starting to doubt the value for money of the Prolimatech Samuel 17 and there are clearly better options on the market both in terms of performance and value for money. Furthermore I feel that the design of the Samuel 17’s heatsink is flawed because it is just too small and thus cannot allow for adequate cooling performance. Furthermore because Prolimatech have sunk the heatsink so low they can’t actually expand it in width because it will start to hit motherboard heatsinks. I think their best option would of been to raise the heatsink higher – literally by about 5mm and then give this unit a much wider heatsink and a half thickness 120mm fan. This way they’d have more heatsink to provide more cooling performance, and bundling a fan with it would allow them to reduce the cost to the consumer. It is also worth noting that when I say this unit has 100% RAM compatibility, it has to because even “normal” height RAM modules wouldn’t fit if the heatsink hung over the memory lanes.

Pros

• Compact and small
• Attractive
• Good Build quality
• Full tube of included thermal paste

Cons

• Heatsink should give more clearance, needs to be raised higher
• Mediocre cooling performance, many better options for the same price
• No included fan, expensive to buy your own

Subjective Issues

• Fan overhang on the heatsink – cools VRM or wasted airflow?

eTeknix says: The Samuel 17 is Prolimatech’s first venture into the low profile CPU cooler market and it isn’t an good start. The Samuel 17 just doesn’t square up with the competition and is left trailing in the distance. In providing six heat pipes on such a small heatsink it actually performs like it has only two or three heat pipes – the six heat pipes appear as form over function and make little impact on performance. Furthermore Prolimatech’s decision to not include a fan makes the Samuel 17 unnecessarily expensive and means that most standard 120mm fans will make this taller than the competition, they should have added a slim 120mm fan to this product as standard.

Thank you to Overclockers UK and CaseKing for providing us with this review sample.