Page 2 - Physical Look - Hardware, Installation
The DeepCool AK400 is very clean in appearance, mixing the black colors with the silver aluminum. The top of the cooler has a black plastic cover, hiding the top fin. The DeepCool logo marked on the corner. The top cover also uses a matte finish with a glossy grid array that looks neat. This design of the top cover is identical to what was seen in the AK620. Newer all-black finishes are better looking when compared to the natural silver color of aluminum. The mix of the natural aluminum silver and the matte black top cover looks good with the AK400. Like many CPU coolers, it is designed with a stack of fins with multiple heatpipes going through the heatsink tower. The fins are mostly rectangular in shape. Most of the heatsink unit is made out of aluminum, with the exception of some copper on the base. A single DeepCool fan is included out of the box and is pre-installed on the cooler.
Manufacturers will typically use a thicker top fin for creating a sturdier build, although this is not the case for this cooler. All sides of the fins are completely exposed aside from the front and top, which are then covered by the fan and the plastic cover. There is a total of 54 fins on the heatsink tower. The spacing between fins is about 2mm with all fins being evenly spaced out from the other, and each fin being 0.2mm thick. With some quick measurements and calculations, the total surface area of the heatsink comes out to around 0.583m². The DeepCool AK400 weighs in at 661g, which is about the average weight for a single tower CPU cooler.
When it comes to dimensions, the DeepCool AK400 has a height of 155mm, width of 127mm, and 97mm depth, which is about the size of your average air cooler. These dimensions are with the fan attached. The height should allow the DeepCool AK400 to fit in small form factor cases. Without the fan, the tower on its own has measurements of approximately 152mm in height, 120mm in width, and 45mm in depth. Four continuous U-shaped heatpipes can be seen from the base leading up for heat dissipation. The purpose of the heatpipes is to efficiently lead the heat away from its source due to the low heat of vaporization, or phase change energy, of the fluid inside. The heatpipes are aligned in a flat manner to spread out the heat in the two arrays. With a total surface area of 0.583m², the AK400 should be able to deliver good heat dissipation theoretically, which I will test on the next page.
This CPU cooler is aligned such that no parts of the cooler will be hanging over the PCI Express slot underneath or your RAM slots next to it, even with the fan attached. This cooler has full compatibility with Intel LGA1700, 1200, 1151, 1150, and 1155 sockets along with AMD AM4 without any interference with your memory.
Looking at the tower without the fan attached, we can get a better look at the design of the leading edges of the heatsink fins. The design is fairly standard with the fins taking on a mostly rectangular shape. A gap exists between the front and back of the tower and the adjacent screw such that users will be able to use a screwdriver to access this screw with ease. The top fin is the same width as the rest of the fins. There are divots on the side of the heatsink for the fan clips to latch onto.
The DeepCool fan in question is nothing out of the ordinary. According to the manufacturer, the included fan is a fluid dynamic bearing 4-pin PWM fan. The fan runs at a maximum speed of 1850 RPM and is rated to run at 12V and 0.13A. The rated noise is about 29 dBA. The fan has a maximum rated airflow of 66.47 CFM and air pressure of 2.04 mm H20. This fan uses a black color scheme with black fan blades, which makes sense, as this is not an RGB LED fan. Based on the specifications, this fan should be able to work well for this cooler, so I personally feel there is no need to swap it out. The DeepCool fan can be mounted using metal clips directly attached to the fan. While this fan comes mounted on the AK400, you will have to remove it for installation, since the front side of the fan covers one of the mounting screws.
The photo above shows the bottom of the DeepCool AK400. Here, we can see the configuration of the heatpipes with respect to the base due to its direct contact heatpipe design. Orange copper strips are seen across the base. The base is reasonably flat for what it is worth, but there are ridges for the simple fact this heatsink has direct contact heatpipes. Overall, the contact base surface is clean. Thermal paste is pre-applied on the contact base, as seen in the photo above. A separate tube would have been preferable, but this is a budget cooler.
The heatsink is made out of copper and aluminum. Copper is always a solid choice for heat transfer with thermal conductivity of 401 W/mK. Meanwhile, the heatsink fins and the rest of the base utilizes aluminum for their build, which is lighter than copper. This is nice as the aluminum fins will reduce the weight and thus, reduce stress on the motherboard. Aluminum does have its trade-offs with thermal conductivity of 237 W/mK, which is significantly less than copper.
All joints are soldered at the base, while the heatpipes are fed through the fins. Overall, the DeepCool AK400 is solidly built. Being light for a tower cooler is important for keeping stress off the motherboard, which the AK400 achieves quite well. The fins are uniformly spread out, and there is a decent amount of heatpipes. I have high hopes for performance. With that said, we will see how this cooler holds up in the upcoming tests, but first, let me install it in my PC.
The installation process was very simple. DeepCool recommends using your stock motherboard backplate if using an AMD processor, which saves some time and effort, even if just a little. The standoffs were easy to install with four screws and some large plastic washers to help hold them in place. Please note that an included backplate will be required for Intel users, although I imagine this is not any more trouble.
A large square bracket is included for installing the cooler onto the motherboard. Plastic spacers can be installed once the backplate is mounted for the mounting bracket to rest on. This mounting bracket is used for both Intel and AMD processors and must be mounted in the correct orientation per the installation manual. The screws are tightened into the backplate with plastic spacers in between. Once this is finished, you can jump into installing the heatsink onto your CPU. While the user manual clearly indicates the tools to use for certain sockets, I do wish the bags had clearly labeled Intel and AMD tools apart.
As mentioned earlier, the AK400 already has thermal paste pre-applied on the contact base. The fan does need to be removed when installing the cooler. From here, the screws can be tightened in an alternating fashion. Any screwdriver that meets the length requirement will work. After reattaching the fan, which is easy to do thanks to the easy clip-on, the only thing left to do afterward is to attach the 4-pin PWM header to the CPU fan header on your motherboard.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Hardware, Installation
3. Test Results
4. Conclusion
