Usually, CPU Air Cooling isn’t the most exciting of tech around and that’s why we often just ignore the fact that picking the right cooler is just as much important as picking the right PSU or casing because it has a big impact on our overall system stability and overclock ability. And since the cooler market is dominated by brands like Noctua, Thermaltake and Zalman etc., a lot of good coolers are easily overlooked just because people prefer to buy the pricier options hoping they would give better performance. And that’s why people like us try to test every new product out in the market hoping to get the consumers (you guys) the best value for your money.
Which brings me to today’s products – two CPU coolers by DeepCool. Both the Flagship Gamer Storm and the second in command Ice Warrior share a lot of technical design similarities, including six copper heat pipes and a tower designed of 48 aluminum fins. They also stand pretty close in price points as well with a difference of about only $5. In fact the only difference visible at a glance is the notable X shape on the fins of the Ice Warrior and its slightly smaller size compared to the Gamer Storm.
So with all their similarities, how well do these two CPU Coolers perform? Lets put them through their paces in our in depth review.
Specifications
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DeepCool Gamer Storm |
DeepCool ICE Warrior |
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Material |
Nickel plated aluminum fins, copper heat pipe and base |
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Dimensions |
134 x 98 x 158 mm |
136 x 84 x 156 mm |
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Weight |
1189 g |
1172 g |
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Fan Bearing |
Hydro Bearing |
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Fan Dimensions |
120 x 120 x 25 mm |
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Fan RPM |
700 ~ 1500 ±10% RPM |
500 ~ 1500 ±10% RPM |
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Fan Max Airflow |
66.3 CFM |
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Fan Noise |
17.6 ~ 27.6 dB (A) |
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Intel Sockets |
LGA 1366 / LGA 1156 / LGA 775 |
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AMD Sockets |
AM3 / AM2+ / AM2 |
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Price |
Approx. $65 |
Approx. $60 |
See I wasn’t joking when I said that both coolers had a lot of similarities. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that both would have very similar performance as well. But we will address that once we get to the testing phase, where I’ll be pitting these two against a GlacialTech F101 cooler.
Packaging and Design: Gamer Storm
Gamer Storm is DeepCool’s flagship universal CPU cooler which is evident from its packaging. The box was so well designed that I was convinced that Gamer Storm was a premium flagship product. The front of the box highlights some of the major features of the cooler in small and neat gray icons while the rest of the box is kept clean from information overload.
The box is locked with a magnetic latch and opening the lid reveals the multilingual specifications on the inside. You can see the CPU cooler laying inside through the plastic window on the internal cover which you can pull open to reveal the actual contents of the box padded with foam. I’ve never seen such great packaging for a CPU Cooler before, and DeepCool certainly didn’t make any compromise while delivering an elegant package design.
The cooler itself – while a little hefty at 1189 grams – is well built. The mirror polished finishing continues to reflect the elegance of the packaging in the product design as well. The Gamer Storm is certainly a large heatsink with a total of 48 aluminum fins being employed as heat spreaders. The cooler has six copper heat pipes measuring 6mm in diameter which run through a rather large copper base all the way up to the tips of the cooler.
The fins are packed closer towards the center of the heatsink and grow further apart as you move towards the edges. This helps in maintaining a good airflow for better cooling performance.
The 120mm fan bundled in the package has a rather unique design. Instead of having a frame of pure plastic and relying on rubber push-pins, the fan’s frame is encapsulated with rubber which strikes the perfect balance between rigidity and damping mechanical vibrations. The fan can operate from 700 RPM (giving out 17.6 dB(A) of noise) to 1500 RPM (giving out about 27.6 dB(A) of noise) with a maximum airflow of 66.3 CFM.
The Gamer Storm ships with one fan in the package only but you do get extra wire clips in case you want to add another fan at the back.
Packaging and Design: Ice Warrior
Despite all the similarities, Ice Warrior doesn’t share the same elegant packaging as the Gamer Storm and perhaps that’s the only thing that shaves that extra $5 from its price tag. But that doesn’t mean that Ice Warrior has a bad packaging. The front of the box has a window in shape of an X which emphasizes the X shaped fins of the cooler inside. Compared to the Gamer Storm, the Ice Warrior’s box has more information outside including technical specifications in a multitude of languages.
Pulling open the box top reveals the contents stacked on top of each other with the fan, Intel and AMD accessories in separate boxes with a white padding between them and the actual cooler.
Speaking of which, the Ice Warrior is a large tower design, not too different from the Gamer Storm. Its slightly lighter at 1172 grams but still features 48 nickel coated aluminum fins along with six copper heat pipes soldered into a hefty copper base with a nickel coated contact below. The fins are cut out in the shape of a large X on the front and rear sides which largely for aesthetic reasons I believe, and it actually looks good. It doesn’t have mirror polishing on the top but the base is still retains the polish like the Gamer Storm for a perfect contact with the CPU package.
The 120mm fan that comes with the package also has anti-vibration rubber coating on its frame though it is different from Gamer Storm even if its performance is similar. It would be interesting to see which of the two fan designs turns out to be more silent when we put both the coolers through their paces.
And just like the Gamer Storm, the Ice Warrior also ships with just one fan in the box, but you do get wire clips for adding another rear fan if you like.
Installation and Testing
Both the Gamer Storm and the Ice Warrior had similar installation mechanisms. The custom motherboard plate meant that you have to take out the board from the casing before you could install the CPU Cooler. While the retention plates for AMD and Intel sockets are different, the same Intel plate can be adjusted to accommodate all the three supported Intel sockets (LGA 1366 / LGA 1156 / LGA 775) by simply sliding the plate and screws.
Thanks to using spring mounted screws and washers, the heatsink is installed with equal pressure on both sides so that it would sit perfectly flat on the surface of the CPU. The package also has a small syringe of thermal paste which can last over 10 applications at least. Though I preferred to use the DeepCool Z9 Thermal Compound for my testing which was also supplied with the product samples and happens to be DeepCool’s flagship thermal compound solution.
Installation was pretty straightforward thanks to a really good installation guide in the box. All you had to do was just remove the motherboard from the case, remove the old cooler, take of the old back plate from the underside of the motherboard, and install the new back plate. After that just install the screw threads, and the insulation washers, fit the appropriate retention plates on the cooler, apply the thermal compound and the finally place and screw in the cooler.
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Test System |
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Processor |
AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition (OC to 3.6GHz, 1.45V, ~150W) |
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Motherboard |
MSI 790GX-G65 |
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Memory |
Corsair XMS3 2x2GB DDR3 1333MHz |
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Graphics Card |
HIS Radeon HD 5770 1GB (OC to 950MHz shader, 1350MHz memory) |
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Casing |
Cooler Master CM690 |
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Power Supply |
ASUS U-65GA 650W |
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Hard Drive |
Western Digital Caviar Green 640GB |
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Case Fans |
2x Stock CM690 120mm (side intake and rear exhaust) 1x Stock CM690 120mm LED (front bottom intake) 1x Noise Blocker M12-P 120mm (bottom intake) 1x Noise Blocker PK-3 140mm (top rear exhaust) 1x DeepCool UF140 140mm (top front intake) 1x DeepCool UF120 120mm (front top intake) |
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CPU Coolers |
DeepCool Gamer Storm (with stock 120mm fan, 1500RPM) DeepCool Ice Warrior (with stock 120mm fan, 1500RPM) GlacialTech F101 (with stock 120mm fan, 900RPM) |
Unfortunately, right before testing, we had a little accident with our Intel system so we had to rely on this AMD unit for the entire series of tests. To give you an idea of how it would perform with Intel CPU, I overclocked the system to go as high as 3.6GHz which produces heat around 150W when running at a Vcore of 1.45V at 100% load. Sure the test numbers might not be exactly what you get on an Intel system this way, but they would be pretty close.
All the testing was done running stress tests on Prime95 64-bit under Windows 7 64-bit. Flip the page to see the temperatures.
Benchmark: Temperatures
Idle temperatures were taken after booting the computer and leaving it idle for about 30 minutes. The ambient temperature during testing was constant at 26 degrees Celsius.
As you can see, the Gamer Storm does edge out in the front but by a very small margin. That’s because both Gamer Storm and Ice Warrior are inherently similar in technical design. Interestingly, the GlacialTech F101 falls rather short in the race even though its keeping the temperatures at a decent level, while both DeepCool coolers manage to keep the temperatures slightly below the ambient temperature.
I’m actually running the Phenom II X3 720 a 0.25 volt above the recommended safe value and thus its producing a thermal envelope of about 150W when running at 3.6GHz. That’s a lot of heat given that my motherboard officially only supports CPUs up to 140W. All these coolers were well taxed to keep the temperatures low, and you can see that DeepCool Gamer Storm rightfully earns its status as the flagship product, but the Ice Warrior also kept close.
The GlacialTech F101 went well into the 60s at load and that’s high enough for me to reconsider using that cooler in a highly overclocked rig like this. While it can get the job done on stock temps, its not that good when it comes to high voltages and its 900RPM fan doesn’t help either.
Conclusion
Like I said at the beginning of the review. Most people overlook great products when it comes to CPU heatsinks and just opt to get a Noctua or a Thermaltake instead while paying a premium price for them. I also used to make the same mistake until I started paying more attention to cooler reviews, and today’s review just reaffirms my new point of view.
The DeepCool Gamer Storm and Ice Warrior have actually proven to be excellent CPU coolers at a very modest asking price. And with only about $5 separating them both, I’d suggest you scoop up the Gamer Storm for your next system build or upgrade if you want to push your system with just air cooling. And if you’re not feeling that adventurous with overclocking, then the Ice Warrior would be more than enough for you.
One thing you have to keep in mind however that both of these coolers are really tall. And that just might be a problem for you if your casing doesn’t have ample room. Of course that’s an issue with all high end coolers these days, but both the Gamer Storm and Ice Warrior happen to be among the tallest among all, and I actually had to remove my second 120mm fan on the left side of the case to install them.
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