Xilence Performance C Series I402 & M403 CPU Cooler Review

Peter Donnell / 9 years ago

Final Thoughts

Price

One of the strongest features of these coolers is their price. The Xilence I402 Intel cooler can be picked up from Alternate for just £12.99, which is very wallet friendly indeed! The slightly more expensive Xilence M403 isn’t exactly a wallet buster either, and clocks in at just £15.79 from Alternate.

Overview

I’m really impressed with the new Xilence coolers, obviously not by their terrible overclocking performance, but just how much you get in general for such a small investment. If you’re running a heavily overclocked CPU, you obviously want to be spending more money and getting something designed for that task, but I’m not about to dismiss these coolers based on them failing a test they were never designed to pass.

At stock loads, they offered cooling performance on par with many high-end products, including some rather large and expensive AIO water coolers. Of course, revisiting that overclocking thing, why would you pay for a £100+ AIO water cooler if you were only running at stock. If you’re building a work rig, a HTPC, or any kind of desktop that has a non-overclocking processor, then you really don’t need anything more than what these Xilence coolers offer. They both ran our test hardware at very reasonable temperatures and with minimal noise too; that makes them a perfectly viable option for a huge range of systems.

Another huge perk is just how easy they were to install. Pop the backplate on, screw it down, that’s all there is to it. This doesn’t seem like much for users installing one cooler, but for system builders or those looking to deploy them in a large group of computers, such as in an office, the time and effort saved with be a very big benefit overall.

Pros

Incredible value for money
Very easy to install
Whisper quiet at stock clocks
Great cooling performance at stock loads
Red and black fan adds to the aesthetics
Thermal Paste comes in multi-application tube
100% RAM clearance
Short design means great chassis compatibility

Cons

Not ideal for overclocking (understandable at this size and price)

“When you want a quick and easy installation, reliable cooling, whisper-quiet performance and you’re on a tight budget, the latest coolers from Xilence are the perfect choice for the job.”