Thermaltake NiC F4 CPU Cooler Review

Thermaltake tell us that the NiC F4 will be coming to market at an MSRP of $42.90 which means approximately £29.99 and €34.99. They have also told us that all NiC series CPU coolers will be available from the end of May at online shops. Now at first glimpse those prices seem impressive but we still have sales taxes and VAT to contend with, as those are “without tax” prices. For example in the UK we are now looking at a price of approximately £35.99 for this product due to 20% VAT, most other countries will see 15-20% added so the price is more like $52/€40/£36 which means this is in the ballpark region of what we’d expect for a dual fan air CPU cooler.

If we look at some of the competing products the NiC F4 goes up against then we can begin to put its price in context: Evercool Venti (£25-30), SilverStone AR01 (£25-30), Cooler Master Hyper 412 Slim (£35-40), Sapphire Vapor-X (£45-50), Spire TME III (£35-40), Gelid GX-7 (£30-35) and NZXT Respire T40 (£35-40). So clearly we can see the Thermaltake NiC F4 does beat a lot of its competitors such as the Vapor-X, Spire TME III and NZXT Respire T40 in terms of bang-for-buck. Yet the NiC F4 loses out to the cheaper single fan Evercool Venti and SilverStone AR01 and the similarly priced dual fan Cooler Master Hyper 412 Slim beats it by quite some margin. What this says to me is the NiC F4 is certainly not a bad product, however, it is lacking some extra performance that you would of expected to see from a good dual fan CPU cooler – in my eyes its performance is just average.

As you’ve seen from our review so far the product itself is very nice looking and is very well built. The 100% RAM compatibility is an excellent feature of the NiC series and we saw a lot of clearance between the RAM and the fan so even on mini-ITX motherboards you would still be able to manage 100% RAM compatibility. The acoustic performance we saw was good at lower RPMs but poor above 1200 RPM, overall it was nothing to write home about. We’ve definitely seen quieter and better performing fans on some other equivalently priced units so we definitely think Thermaltake should consider upping their game when it comes to fan quality and the fan’s noise-to-performance ratio.

Pros

• Solid build quality
• Durable and Intuitive mounting mechanisms for heatsink and fans
• Attractive red and black colour scheme
• Included thermal paste
• 100% RAM compatibility

Cons

• Average cooling performance for a dual fan CPU cooler
• High price – better coolers can be had for the money
• Fan noisy at low-medium RPMs, 1200-1600

As a budget to mid range CPU cooler the Thermaltake NiC F4 does a good job of meeting the needs of an overclocker or enthusiast who wants 100% RAM compatibility. However, as our results demonstrate the performance is just average on both the thermal and acoustic fronts. If anyone bought this CPU cooler they’d have nothing to complain about from the product itself, its problem rests on the fact other CPU coolers can be had for the same money that do the same job better. With such a fiercely competitive CPU cooler market, every degree counts, and I was really expecting more performance from the Thermaltake NiC F4.

Thank you to Thermaltake for providing this review sample