SilentiumPC Grandis & Fera 2 CPU Cooler Review
Peter Donnell / 10 years ago
Final Thoughts
Price
It was a little tricky to track down prices for these coolers, as they’re only just expanding into other markets and for now most of the retailers that stock the coolers are either in Poland or Greece. A quick bit of research tells me that the Fera2 is £15, although in the UK that would likely be a little over £20 with taxes added. The Grandis comes in at around £20-25. These are very budget friendly products and while it appears that the Grandis is a waste of money, the Fera2 has the potential to be a smash hit at this price range, given its performance was pretty stunning for such an unassuming looking cooler.
Overview
So there we have it, two interesting new coolers from the up and coming SilentiumPC. On one hand we have one of the best budget friendly coolers I’ve ever tested; the Fera2, and on the other hand we have the Grandis which for reasons I cannot understand performs little or no better than its cheaper counterpart. So for the remainder of this overview section let’s just forget about the Grandis, as it’s a waste of money and lets focus on the Fera2.
The Fera2 is one of the quietest coolers I’ve ever tested. I’m not even sure why this is true, but the numbers do not lie. The fan is basic and actually a fairly standard bit of kit, but it worked superbly in all our tests and barely made a whisper. I decided to test it with two fans, since SilentiumPC included a spare one for me and temperatures were around 1 to 2c cooler on average with only a marginal increase in volume. There are benefits to the dual fan setup, but I’m not convinced you’ll actually need it, as one fan performed well enough.
In terms of performance I didn’t think that the Fera2 was anything special, the test figures looked OK, but when I punched them into the spreadsheet I realised that for the money, there is nothing else this cheap that even comes close to this kind of cooling performance. The performance is “average” for certain, but the price tag makes this an absolute bargain, assuming you can get stock of it in your region of course.
Pros
- Budget friendly prices
- Good build quality
- Reasonable performance
- Sleeved fan cables
- Extra fan clips included in the box
- Fera2 performance exceeded our expectations
Cons
- Mounting brackets are tricky to work with
- Grandis coolers performance was less than anticipated
- Availability is limited
“SilentiumPC may be new to the industry, but they’ve proven that they can make a great cooler that doesn’t cost the Earth. If they keep making great performing, low-cost products such as the Fera2, then I can see a promising future for their brand. Certainly one to keep an eye on.”
Thank you SilentiumPC for providing us with these samples.