By: Ben Joubert
September 16, 2016
Everyone has their different topics that pique their interest, and they generally know a lot of specifics to these subjects. One of the subjects for me back in high school was economics. I was not overly interested in it, but it was something I wanted to know more about. I took two economics courses, microeconomics and macroeconomics, and they were both quite intriguing. One of the assignments in the course was to select a book written about economics and do a review on it. We were not able to choose any book, but rather from a select few the teacher had previously decided on. Among the choices were Freakonomics and Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, but I ended up choosing The Tipping Point by the same author. The book speaks about a tipping point to products when they go from being not so well known to suddenly becoming a phenomenon. This line of thinking of a tipping point can really be applied to many different areas in quite a few different ways. One of those could be the size of a heatsink compared to its cooling efficiency. Of course, there are more factors to a heatsink than just how big it is, but surface area is definitely a major part of it, due to a heatsink being able to disperse heat out and allowing for more cooling to occur. Technically speaking, there should be a sweet spot for size compared to cooling efficiency, but where exactly that would be, I have no idea. Today, we have the Reeven Brontes RC-1001b up for review, which is a pretty small CPU cooler. Did it go too small and as a result, miss out on being able to effectively cool? Read on to find out!
The Reeven Brontes arrived with the Reeven Four Eyes Touch I reviewed a while ago. It arrived in a relatively small brown corrugated box via Canada Post once it reached Canada. The shipping box arrived in good condition at APH Networks, Calgary, Alberta, with only a few dents and scrapes, but nothing major to doubt the safety of the products inside. After inspecting the outside, I proceeded to open it up to get to the Reeven Brontes.
The Reeven Brontes RC-1001b retail box is very small. The outside is mostly white, with some black to the bottom left, where the product name and other information is found. To the right is an image of the product. On the top left we find the Reeven branding with the motto. The back of the box is plain white, while the sides hold more information. This includes information such as all its specifications in multiple different languages, while another is reserved for some cautionary information. On the last side is a small visual representation of the cooler, with its dimensions shown, as well as some information for contacting Reeven.
Before we move on, here are some specifications, as obtained from the manufacturer's website:
Specifications
Socket: INTEL: LGA 775 / 1150 / 1151 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366
AMD: AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / AM3+ / FM1 / FM2 / FM2+ / AM1(RC-1001b only)
Overall Dimension: (W)105 x (H)59 x (D)114mm
Fan Dimension: 100 x 100 x 12mm
Heatpipe: Ø6mm x 4
Fan Speed: 650 ~ 2200RPM
Air Flow: 11.81 ~ 30.39CFM
Static Pressure: 0.008 ~ 0.058inchH2O
Noise Level: 10.5 ~ 31.67dBA
Weight(with Fan): 325g
The retail packaging is nicely and tightly packed, with sufficient padding to ensure no damage is done to the Reeven Brontes during transportation. Inside we find the heatsink, which is very small, a little box containing all the parts for installation, and an instruction booklet. Something I have not seen before, but is done to save some money, is a plastic bag of thermal paste instead of the more conventional plastic syringe. However, let us take a closer look at the unit itself now.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Hardware; Installation
3. Test Results
4. Conclusion
