How well does a $17 cooler actually work?

so I'm kind of bored like you guys with

a lot of the stuff going on in the PC

industry right now so I just started

perusing Amazon looking for weird things

and anytime I do that you guys seem to

enjoy it cuz sometimes we find stuff

that we never expected like a gamer

refrigerator a little desk fridge um

$100 monitor that apparently has really

good gaming specs part of Amazon basics

in collaboration with AOC mini PCS that

actually have pretty decent specs that

cost a significant amount less than you

would expect and gamer finger socks

anyway that's not we're going to talk

about today these are future videos

coming up but today we're going to talk

about this this is the dark Rock PX4 not

to be confused with be quiet's dark Rock

I'm not quite sure how they're getting

away with the naming scheme but I

digress this is a

$16.98 cooler what could go

wrong Hey

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freebi okay so in terms of specs though

uh it's 120 mm by 72 x 152 so it's 152

mm High 72 mm whatever right for the all

people tend to care about is the height

it's actually 72 mm thick 120 mm

diameter so it's a 120 mm fan does

support l LGA 1700 so that was my first

concern is like will it work with the

latest socket also does LGA 1200 115x so

all the 1150s 1152 1156 amds am5 and am4

cool it says it can handle 200 watts of

TDP so we might start with a 13900 K and

see how it can do and then instead of

changing like our actual CPU I'll

probably just turn off cores to

represent other CPUs believe it or not

it actually works pretty close that way

to to figure out what the actual like

thermal capabilities are

has four pure copper heat pipes which

are technically going to be face change

all heat pipes are face change pipes uh

or vapor chamber I should say um and

then the fan speed says 700 to 1800 RPM

and it's a four four pin pwm 22.3 DB

that's really low so I'm curious

accessories included 1 G tube of high

performance thermal paste back plate

mounting set for Intel and AMD and a PX4

manual I'm going to be using the thermal

paste it comes with the reason for that

is if you buy any reputable brand

thermal paste it will probably cost more

than the cooler itself so we're going to

see if you were on an extreme budget

whether or not this

cooler can get the job

done it actually doesn't look that bad

to be honest it actually reminds me very

close of like the VR V5 cooler that I

did um also too if you're watching this

video let me let me tell you right now

I'm going to be putting the link to this

down in the cart below or down in the

description below if you have any

interest in this cooler and it performs

even somewhat decent I highly recommend

you pick one up no it's not sponsored I

bought it okay we all know after this

video this will be a $30 cooler we all

know how it works okay it sucks I can

only do a video one time like this and

then the brand goes and screws it up for

everybody else um and then eventually

the price will probably come back down

but for $16 I can't what's the exact

amount I know it was $16 I want to know

what the change is cuz I I don't want to

just randomly say an amount

$159 it was actually 8% on sale normally

$17.99 first review a truly impressive

performance for the price pretty quiet

and keeps mid-tier CPUs cool they're

running a 12600 K and it keeps it around

58c under all course stress test 58c I'm

going to I'm actually going to call

maybe shenanigans on that temp I have a

12900 K and it cools it really fine

don't need a water cooler does the job

for me and then another one says screws

are too big to fit so anyway one person

is running at 12900 K so I will start

with a

13900 uh K and then we'll see like if I

turn off cores and make it like a

something like represent maybe like a 13

700k or something like that we'll see

what happens silica this is all you get

in the box so the Fan's already attached

which is nice and it uses essentially

identical Clips to how the be quiet

stuff is like it's identical so I'm

starting to wonder if this is maybe like

a odm OEM Rebrand kind of a thing um the

fans actually the fan actually seems

like a decent quality the the the cage

is a little bit on the thin side but it

actually has rubber mounts um which are

anti vibration which would be nice the

screws to mount it down are like

captured in there with like a cat clip

they are spring-loaded so you might need

to remove the fan maybe I don't know it

seems to accommodate the fan just fine

you can see it's Offset you can actually

see how the pipes like Bend like that so

the fan would go on the Ram side that

way you're pushing air towards the back

of the case and your rear fan could pick

up that heat and just exhausted out the

back um it's black I don't know if it's

a Sak coat it could be a sah coat it

could be a ceramic coat for this price

it's hard to say I hope it's not just

paint cuz paint actually could insulate

and hurt its performance a little bit um

you can actually see right there um we

do have the uh four copper heat pipes

that are exposed copper and they are

shaved flat and then you have sort of

the heat sink in between which is kind

of soldered between the Heat pipes to

help dissipate heat across the uh IHS

into the cooler past that the in the uh

mounting hardware I already talked about

what it supports these spacers being

kind of like a baby blue are interesting

normally these are just

black um additional Clips so if you want

to set it up as a push pool that could

help uh if the fan moves enough air the

Cooler's not thick enough or dense

enough to really necessarily need Push

Pull I don't think adding Push Pull

would really add to the cooling

capabilities of it but you never know

here are the 115x am these These are the

Intel 11700 these are the Intel brackets

and then we obviously have pretty

standard stuff like I have seen these

exact mounts in a ton of other cooler

boxes like this looks identical to the

uh be quiet so I'm starting to really

wonder if this is literally a knockoff

of like a like a dark Rock mini kind of

a

deal um these are our Intel AMD brackets

so this is what actually gets mounted

down onto the

motherboard and then you can see how

they have these

studs not this stud right here it's got

these studs which is what these threads

thread down on also too they give you 1

G of thermal

paste there's not a lot in here so get

it right the first time because you all

know on on 12th gen and up CPUs the IHS

is pretty big and you can tell by how

much of the plunger is sticking out

versus how long the actual tube is that

less than half of that is filled so you

need more than an average P size or

grain of rice these days to clear and

cover an IHS they do give you a spatula

too that way you can like spread the

paste um yeah we'll be maybe I'll show

you guys once the thermal paste is on

the CPU before I apply the cooler just

how much there was prior to uh

installation so here's the hardware

installed everything clear so far at

least on our motherboard this is kind of

a crowded board with the block and stuff

here um so you can see it all fits just

fine doesn't hit any of our standoff or

not standoff but our caps right here

should spread just

fine that's a fair amount of paste

actually so you definitely will

get an application out of it not to

though that's for sure cuz there's not

much left in there and this might seem

like an awful lot of thermal paste

believe it or not

for a 12300 it's actually not a lot now

when it comes to trying to spread it it

definitely feels like a thick cake

frosting but there's plenty on here and

yeah it may not look like it's getting

all all the way to the edges or

something but it still will spread once

it's uh down under tension and I still

have a little bit on the on the spatula

there at the same time when it gets warm

it'll get liquidy and then it will sort

of fill in the gaps a little better what

I'm going to do is I'm going to put

another little drop right in the center

cuz there's still some left and that'll

help promote some of the spread thermal

paste applications are not as sensitive

as people might like to try and make

them out to be so the orientation you're

kind of you're not necessarily locked in

you could rotate it uh if you wanted as

as long as the overhang as you can see

there is some overhang here to allow for

AMD sockets as well if you want to turn

them so let's say you have a case that

you need to exhaust out the top or

something like that um you might have

some clearance issues with the extra

width hitting something like over here

or maybe even interfering with that

inside stick of ram so I only used two

sticks of ram in any of my systems so it

wasn't a problem for this build so as

you can see I'm going to have I'm

actually going to have some interference

right here I actually touched the pace a

little bit but it hits the fan hits

right here the cooler clears it but the

fan is actually hitting it now you see

how the fan is overhanging down on the

bottom I can actually just undo these

clamp these clips and then I can scoot

the fan up maybe to make it a little bit

more flush with the

bottom like that so now we should clear

it kind of looks stupid hanging off the

top but this is the thing is really

tight with this particular type of um

heat sink for the vrms so now we're down

so I just wanted to show right there

this is the kind of stuff that I think

when you read reviews like on Amazon and

stuff maybe less experienced Builders

might just be like oh my gosh it hits

and then that's it they're like uh they

don't realize that they can adjust the

fan height and this is true for almost

any cooler on this type of motherboard

it's very unflattering angles is brought

to you by trying to reach power button

it's installed you can see it clears the

GPU and stuff just fine let me try and

turn it an angle you guys can see so

that's one of the things some of the big

coolers have a problem with is they're

so wide that they interfere with the GPU

cooler or the GPU if it has a top slot

that's like real close to the CPU this

particular board happens to have like a

half slot thing sort of because of the

display in between the cooler which

helps I do wish the cooler was a little

taller before the the main heat sing

started cuz then we wouldn't have issues

with like it hitting on the vrm and

stuff like that but once I got the

cooler mounted down I was able to lower

the fan a little bit so now you can see

we don't have nearly as much hanging off

the top I wanted as much air going

through the fins as possible possible

now one thing I've noticed is like just

handling it trying to get it mounted

down and stuff the fins are really thin

so it's easy to bend them like I bent

these over here as you can see The

Middle's kind of pushed down a little

bit they definitely feel like you're

getting what you paid for so I feel like

if this is a ripoff of like a be quiet

cooler that they just took the design

and applied a cheaper material to it

what I'm going to do right now too

because I want to know what the maximum

cooling capability is I'm going to start

by having the fan profile set to like

Turbo and then if that's just not enough

we might just end up going full speed

the whole time I can feel the air flow

all the way out here though okay so

we're on stock out of the box settings

with XMP profiled for our Ram as you can

see right now just sitting in the

desktop our package is at 36 our cores

are between thir 29 and 35 not terrible

I did have uh the Nvidia driver

installing for this GPU I just popped on

here and you can see that the hottest

core we got to so far was

68 uh coup 68 there as well 60 on that

one not a very heavily multi-threaded

task obviously I'm going to go ahead and

just start with C bench I expect this to

be a disaster I also kind of want C

bench to heat up that paste and liquefy

it real quick to get it to spread nicely

then we'll look at real case real world

scenarios of like gaming and stuff like

that and just browsing to see what the

CPU temperature looks like because cin

bench is not real world it is a stress

test on purpose that'll push your CPU

harder than just about any no average

consumer sitting at home playing games

surfing the internet doing documents

taxes writing doing homework whatever

surfing browsing getting emails will

never ever ever see their CPU get pushed

like cine bench if you're a professional

you might but you're also not going to

be buying this cooler if you're

professional either cuz you already know

better than to spend that little on a

cooler so let's go ahead and just start

multicore and see what happens here

we're looking here this is what we're

looking at I'm expecting to see 100 C

instantly there it is 100 C instantly on

the package our clock speeds are slowing

down because of it actually we're at 51

allore I mean 5'4 allcore is the max

that we I think 54 is the max we expect

to see maybe

55 uh with like aios and stuff it

dropped down to 5,000

already but it still gave us a 36,6 A7

now has it's gimped our performance a

bit because of the fact that the 100 C

it pulled 323 Watts that means this

motherboard is also still pushing the

CPU farther than it's supposed because

253 watts is where we're supposed to max

out so that means the optimized defaults

for this motherboard are already like

affecting our performance and that's a

bigger gripe that we have about the way

motherboard manufacturers Implement

their own bio settings on top of the

Intel recommended so what I'm going to

do is I'm going to go back into the BIOS

I'm going to put on the Intel limits and

see there's 236 252 look at that 8991 90

so we're not even throttling technically

we're at 51 gigs which is now

realistically within the

so see people see the up to and they

start to go oh well I'm not getting 5.5

like it said on the up to out of the box

but that's 5.5 based on some very

specific criteria also including

ridiculous cooling if you can keep it

down to like 60° under load like a crazy

water cooling setup or something and you

get the voltage dialed in just right you

could probably get that 5.5 on this

cooler but even the fact that we saw

5.1 at

all uh allcore and we did hit 100 C

right towards the end but look we got

37,9 so still lower than a 30 13900 K

should be hitting it should be landing

around 39,000 or so but again we're on a

$17 cooler let's keep that in mind so

real quickly I'm going to do some

voltage adjustment to this just to see

if I can get us to stay in the higher

boost Clocks by now adjusting voltage

again these are problems with the

platform not the cooler all right so