Sapphire’s Vapor-X cooling solutions are world renowned in terms of their cooling performance and excellent acoustics. Until recently they have only been available for graphics cards. Today Sapphire have unveiled the Vapor-X CPU cooler, Sapphire’s first ever CPU cooler, and we have one here for review on release day.
This CPU cooler features Sapphire’s Vapor Chamber technology to improve cooling performance as well as a pair of 120mm blue LED fans and blue LED illumination on the top of the CPU cooler too. Sapphire have opted for the rugged gamer design with styled black plastic along the top, similar to the kind of style implemented by Cooler Master’s V6 GT and Thermaltake’s Frio OCK.
First impressions really are good. We can tell Sapphire know what they are doing when it comes to creating cooling products and they haven’t struggled at all in making the move from VGA cooling to CPU cooling. For those of you with a good memory you may remember the Sapphire Vapor-X CPU cooler from Computex 2012 in Taipei where Sapphire gave a preview of their upcoming product. Specifications can be found on the next page on the second image. Let’s begin shall we?
Looks awesome!
Hello guyz, nice review. I have a question, i recentlly buyed Patriot Intel Extreme Masters 4×4 16Gb quad channel memory and I wanna know if cand fits all 4 of them if a put this cooler with the vents horizontally like in that picture?????
what motherboard.
Gigabyte GA-Z87-HD3
Yes. Compatibility will be the same as my motherboard that I used for the review (ASUS P8Z77-V) because you have the same 5mm spacing between the first RAM slot and the edge of the socket area. It will be a tight squeeze but it will definitely fit.
Seems quite respectable & certainly seems a far better bet than some of the coolers it competes against but as far as I’m concerned you just can’t beat the all in one liquid coolers from the likes of Corsair & others but I suppose everyone’s needs & want’s differ.
I appreciate that Sentiment, We have a Corsair H55, Corsair H100i and Thermaltake Water 2.0 Extreme review(s) all on the way! Hopefully then we can give everyone an even more accurate representation of the entire market including AIO Liquid solutions.
I think I may have to buy one, mainly because of the blue LED’s haha, I have a NZXT Phantom full tower with 7 blue LED fans, this would complete the set!
You mention the cooling falling somewhere in between the TME III and DRP 2, yet make no mention of it being on par with (actually slightly worse than) the far less expensive Hyper 412 and getting beat up by the even less expensive Mugen 3 in your tests. This seems to be a bit of a case of selective information…….and that must be the magic Mugen 3. Seems to be the only one that anyone has ever tested that outperformed a DRP2.
And you do realize that core temps do not necessarily increase on a one to one ratio to ambient and are affected by other conditions, don’t you? So rolling out numbers from tests done at different times isn’t very accurate for comparisons.
First point of consideration is yes we use deltas and I know a one to one ratio of ambient increase to delta increase isn’t possible. Hence why we keep it within 1 degree of 22 degrees celsius (if you read the methodology page you would of seen this), so if the delta doesn’t correct it perfectly then the potential for variation is only 1 degree in each direction. Secondly, yes I appreciate the Hyper 412 is better (this costs around £35-40 depending on retailer) and the Scythe Mugen 3 is also better (this costs £40-45) but the Sapphire Vapor X still has good performance for its price point (£45-50) – a lot of other coolers performance worse.
I agree the Mugen 3 beating the Dark Rock Pro 2 is strange, but ultimately these were the results obtained. We run each test 3 times, that is 3 remounts and 3 reapplications of thermal paste. If we can’t put our reputation behind the results then they do not get published.
Information is not selectively published. The reason I consider the Hyper 412 Slim to not be a competitor is because stock is more or less impossible to acquire in the UK. If you can’t buy something then how can it compete. Second, the Scythe Mugen 3 from my results was just an exceptional cooler, but I cannot rule out every other product that costs more than £40 and fails to beat the Scythe Mugen as rubbish because not everyone wants a Scythe Mugen 3.
The Mugen 3 actually costs less than the 412 in the US (retailer dependent, of course), but now that Scythe USA has closed for the time being, who knows…….
Since you agree that the Mugen 3 outperforming a DRP 2 is strange, then you certainly can’t fault me for my skepticism. The Mugen 3 is a fantastic cooler at that price point, I won’t argue that at all. But, it certainly didn’t come close to the DRP 2 in my testing or any other that I have seen.
And, yes, the Vapor-X is not the worst cooler out there at it’s price point, I just find it odd that you don’t mention that the two much lower priced coolers do a better cooling job in your tests. Kind of hard to ignore when any cooler is getting beat up on by quality pieces that cost significantly less.
Mugen 3 costs about £10 less. Hyper 412 Slim is more or less EOL/discontinued in the UK. Very few coolers beat the Vapor-X at the price point. if you are advocating the Scythe Mugen 3 is worse than our results suggest then surely that makes the Vapor-X better?
So, you lose the 412, and we lose the whole Scythe line for the moment….neither is a particularly good event.
As far as the Mugen vs the Vapor-X, I have not had the opportunity to put them in the same build personally, so anything I said would be speculative, and that doesn’t do anyone any good.
Also you may want to consider this test:
http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/3062/6/zalman-cnps12x-vs-be-quiet-dark-rock-pro-2-cool-and-quiet-test-results-cooling-performance-low-speed
The Hyper 412 Slim and Scythe Mugen 3 both BEAT the DRP2 up to thermal loads of 160W. So clearly you should get your facts straight before trying to undermine test results of the “magic mugen 3”
Did you notice this: http://uk.hardware.info/productinfo/134074/scythe-mugen-3-rev-b#tab:testresults
They didn’t test the Mugen 3 in house…..they culled from someone else’s data.
Besides, I own both and have used both in the same build. That is as factual as you will get.
Well their review went live before ours did, so someone else must of replicated similar results as us therefore I don’t think our results are that strange considering. I understand your skepticism because “in theory” the dark rock pro 2 should be better but for whatever reason, be it the fact we use an open air test bench, be it the fact Ivy bridge responds very strangely to CPU coolers or another reason I may be missing, the Scythe Mugen 3 performed like that. In relation to the fact I think the Mugen 3 is an “exceptional case” I awarded the Sapphire Vapor X because in relation the everything else it was excellent. Plus unlike the Mugen 3 it offers dual fans (better for inside cases where airflow is tight), LED lighting, 100% ram compatibility (unlike the Mugen 3) and is much more gamer orientated. May I ask what system you tested the Muge 3 and DRP2 on?