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CRYORIG A40 CPU Cooler Review

June 24th, 2016 James Leave a comment Go to comments

Overview

Over the last few years CPU Coolers have truly evolved; from large tower coolers such as Noctua’s massive NH-D14 through to AIO (All in One) liquid CPU Coolers such as NZXT’s Kraken, you’d have thought by now we’d seen it all. BUT! New and upcoming Cooling specialist CRYORIG actually have something new, something we’ve not seen before, enter the CRYORIG A40.

On face value the CRYORIG A40 is an AIO liquid CPU Cooler for both Intel and AMD CPUs. It comes in three varieties the A40, the A40 Ultimate and the A80, with the main difference being the size of the radiator. Today we will be taking a look at the standard entry level A40 that features the smallest of the three radiators measuring in at 240mm by 27.5mm. In addition to the two supplied 120mm fans for the radiator CRYORIG supplies a third that sits atop the CPU pump itself and helps to cool the motherboard and its associated heatsinks/VRMs, interesting eh…

‘Conventional Closed Looped Cooling exists a fundamental flaw. With no fan on the CPU hot components surround the CPU are left with no airflow. Heat builds up around these often extremely vital components like the Voltage Regulator and lowers system stability and component life span. Heatpipe based air cooling units provide a great combination of system airflow and CPU cooling. It’s CPU cooling heat capacity however, is limited by the size of the heatsink, and quantity of heatpipes. This creates a upper limit for cooling capacity due to practical size. At CRYORIG, we create solutions for problems. Being experts of air cooling, we thought why not take the best of both worlds, sometimes it is as simple as sticking a fan to it! More airflow, better cooling! Our PWM controlled Airflow fan can modify fan RPM speed based on the heat and processing load of the system.’

The CRYORIG A40 arrived at pcG in a large black/white box that was covered in information about the CPU Cooler hiding within. On what appears to be the front of the box there’s a partial image of the A40 cooler along with a short description. In addition to this CRYORIG have chosen not only to highlight the radiator class (240×27.5mm) but also to highlight the ‘Patent Pending Airflow Fan Cools Components Increase Stability’, ‘The latest in Cooling Tech Liquid Cooling Done Right’ and ‘Fast & Easy Installation Get Started in 5 Minutes’.

The right side of the box depicts the difference between Hybrid Liquid Cooling vs Conventional Liquid Cooling courtesy of a pair of thermal images. There’s also a QR-Code linking to this video.

The back of the box shows technical drawings of the Pump, Radiator, Fan and Airflow fan as well as a general specifications list (see Specifications/Features below). In addition to this we can see all of the socket types supported (Intel 2001v3/1366/1150/1151/1155/1156 AMD FM1 FM2/+ AM2/+ AM3/+).

On opening the top of the box we are greeted with cool blue panels regarding registration and the extended three year warranty. This is always good to see as some manufacturers seem to like to hide their warranty information away behind their website, but not CRYORIG! 😉

As we can see the packaging is the usual egg-carton (recycled material) type packaging, everything was well protected and all component parts arrived in good order. Although I would say for a CRYORIG product presentation wasn’t as good as previous products.

Within the box other than the A40 CPU Cooler itself we find an installation Guide, AMD retention plate, AMD backplate, Intel backplate, Radiator/fan screws and washers, lock nuts, pillars and Intel socket 2011v3 pillars.

At the time of writing the CRYORIG A40 is retailing at Ebuyer for approximately £75 and comes with a 3 year warranty (if extended via registration).

Specifications/Features

courtesy of Cryorig

A40 SPECIFICATION
Model Name	A40
Radiator Dimensions	L272 x W120 x H27.5 mm
Radiator Material	Aluminum
Pump Dimensions ( with fan )	L88 x W88 x H116.2 mm
Pump Dimensions ( without fan )	L88 x W88 x H52.8 mm
Tube Length	350 mm
Tube Diameter	Ø10 mm
Fan Model	QF120 Performance
Fan Dimensions	L120 x W120 x H25.4 mm
Fan Speed	600 ~ 2200 RPM ±10 %
Fan Noise Level	13 ~ 37 dBA
Fan AirFlow	83 CFM
Fan Pressure	3.33 mmH2O
Fan Ampere	0.43 A
Airflow Fan Dimensions	L70 x W70 x H25.4 mm
Airflow Fan Speed	1500 ~ 3000 RPM ±10 %
Airflow Fan Noise Level	15 ~ 27 dBA
Airflow Fan AirFlow	25 CFM
Airflow Fan Pressure	3.1 mmH2O
Airflow Fan Ampere	0.12 A

* Additional details available here

First Impressions

First impression of CRYORIG’s new A40 AIO CPU Cooler are along the lines of the fact that it looks pretty much like a lot of other AIO coolers, especially ones equipped with a Asetek’s Gen 5 Pump and Cold Plate. It all appears to be well made, especially the fans. Of course the Airflow fan deserves a special mention though; a fan that fits atop the pump head and pushes (or pulls) air over the CPU heatsinks/VRMs. Something that in my mind seems to be a very sensible idea indeed, now why didn’t I think of that… 😉

The A40 is equipped with a 240mm x120mm x 27.5mm radiator, while the A40 Ultimate has a 38.5mm thick radiator and the A80 has a 280mm radiator. The radiator itself is made from aluminium and connected to the pump via two 10mm rubber tubes that are 350mm in length. The tubes are permanently attached to the radiator and pump head and are therefore not designed to be removed.

The pump head is particularly smart and consists of an Asetek Gen 5 pump and cold plate. By default the pump has its Intel retention ring attached, while the AMD one is supplied in the box. The pump head features CRYORIG branding but no illumination. The slot and the fan socket atop the pump housing is for the additional Airflow fan.

As you can see from the image above the Cold Plate has thermal paste pre-applied and this will be used in our own testing as that’s what most of you will use, we think!

Turning our attention to the fans and first looking at the fans for the radiator, we find two 120mm fans. These fans are actually CRYORIG’s own QF120 fans that feature a rotational speed of 600 – 2200 RPM, a maximum CFM of 83 and an associated noise level of up to 37dBA.

But the most import part of CRYORIG’s new A40 is the Airflow fan, this little fan (that sits atop the pump to aide MB cooling) measures in at just 70mm and has a rotational speed of 1500 – 3000 RPM a maximum CFM of 25 and an associated noise level of up to 27dBA. The dual sided clip at the foot of the fan allows the fan to be installed in either a push or pull configuration.

At this point I have to say that I’m quite impressed with what I’ve seen so far. CRYORIG have produced a good looking, well made AIO CPU Cooler with a novel feature (that Airflow fan) that actually seems to make sense. There’s also a bit of a novelty factor about the product too and that alone (for now) makes it a little more interesting than some of its competitors…

Hardware Installation

Test Rig Setup

Case	Cooler Master HAF XB	Power Supply	Corsair Professional Series AX 760i
Motherboard	ASRock Fatal1ty Z170 GAMING K6	CPU	Intel Core i5-6600K
CPU Cooler	CRYORIG A40	RAM	G Skill Ripjaws 4 16GB
Graphics Card	EVGA GeForce GTX 980Ti Classified	SSD	HyperX FURY 120GB

After first establishing what parts were required for our socket 1151 install it was time to get the A40 installed. For installation we will require one Intel backplate, four threaded posts and four retaining nuts, that’s it! Well other than the radiator’s associated screws and washers. Note, the pump retaining ring for Intel is already pre-attached to the pump head.

The next task was to attach the Airflow fan to the top of the pump. This would seem to just clip into position, yet when lining it up the slot and the flange didn’t seem to align as well as I would have thought. After consulting the instructions it would certainly seem it just could be pushed into place. So after plugging in the fan’s power cable it was pushed (forced a little) into position. Thankfully it actually fitted without issue. Note that the fan can be positioned in either a push or pull configuration, I opted for push meaning that air would be blown over the CPU’s heatsinks/VRMs.

After positioning the backplate at the back of the ASRock motherboard it could be secured from the other side by the four posts. Note that the plate is somewhat loose when fitted, but this is by design and mentioned in the instructions. For now that’s all we need to do for the pump head.

The radiator was installed in the front of the HAF XB case with the fans on the outside and the radiator on the inside. To do this I used all of the supplied eight long screws and eight washers.

The pump head could now be secured to the top of the CPU (thermal paste pre-applied) by the four nuts provided. Finally cabling saw the SATA power (nice to see SATA and not Molex) connected up, the PWM control plug connected up to the CPU fan header on the motherboard and the twin fans connected up to the cables trailing from the pump.

To be honest installation doesn’t generally get much easier than this and I rather like the overall aesthetic, mainly because it’s different! Let hope there’s some real science behind it though and let’s crack on with some thermal testing. Note that testing was carried out with only one GPU fitted (as is the norm) the image above is for aesthetic purposes only… 😉

Testing Methodology/Setup

For CPU Cooler testing, we here at pcGameware run Prime95 for a 15 minute period. During this period the temperature is monitored via ASRock’s F-Stream utility and the CPU temperature recorded. Between each stress test we allow a 15 minute cool-down to allow for more accurate results. To adjust the fan speed we simply use the UEFI. A close eye is also kept on the ambient temperature, with the maximum being recorded for each run, this allows us to calculate the Delta temperature (Core – Ambient = Delta). Each run was performed with the Intel Core i5-6600K CPU at the following frequencies: 3.9GHz (Stock) and 4.4GHz (using the ASRock OC Tweaker, shown in the images below), all results have also been recorded with CPU-Z.

* Please note: To ascertain the maximum and minimum noise levels produced by our test CPU Coolers, the dBA is recorded at a distance of 1 metre from the cooler, with all case fans unplugged to isolate the sound in question.

ASRock UEFI - Load Optimized CPU OC Setting

Processor speed is set using the OC Tweaker tab within the UEFI, “Disabled” for stock speeds (3.9GHz) and “Turbo 4.4GHz” for the overclock tests. It should be noted that changing the OC settings resets the Fan Speeds, so these are checked on the next reboot and reset to “Full Speed” (see above right). All the fans installed in the system are set to 100% speed using the displayed settings, this is simple with the ASRock UEFI with the option of “Full Speed” being available for all system fans.

Hardware Performance

As stated above, to make our performance tests easier to follow and to get the most accurate recordings, all of the following tests have been carried out with case fans set at 100% and the Cryorig A40 fan also set at 100%.

Intel Core i5-6600K – 3.9GHz (stock)

ASRock F-Stream CPU @ 3.9GHz @ 1.136v (fans @ 100%)

CPU Cooler	Air/Liquid	Fan Speed	Ambient Temperature	Max CPU Temperature (core average)	Delta Temperature	Noise Level
CRYORIG A40	Liquid	100%	24.00	42.00	18.00	54dB
Alpenföhn Atlas	Air	100%	21.00	42.00	21.00	39dB
NZXT Kraken X31	Liquid	100%	22.00	43.00	21.00	39dB
Noctua NH-U12S	Air	100%	22.00	44.00	22.00	38dB
Scythe Fuma	Air	100%	22.00	45.00	23.00	44dB
be quiet! Dark Rock TF	Air	100%	22.00	48.00	26.00	38dB
Cryorig H7	Air	100%	24.00	51.00	27.00	41dB

Last time we saw a CRYORIG Cooler here at pcG I must confess to being a little underwhelmed by its performance, but let’s not forget that CPU Cooler (CRYORIG H7) is a somewhat budget conscious cooler. Well this time around it would appear a CRYORIG cooler is having the opposite effect as we find the A40 at the top of both of our charts. With a maximum CPU Core temperature of just 42 degrees Celsius (and a Delta of 18) while at stock speeds (3.9GHz), the A40 has blown the competition away. But the eagle eyed may have already noticed the Noise Level at 54dBA, but more on that in a minute…

Intel Core i5-6600K – 4.4GHz (OC Tweaker)

ASRock F-Stream CPU @ 4.4GHz @ 1.312v (fans @ 100%)

CPU Cooler	Air/Liquid	Fan Speed	Ambient Temperature	Max CPU Temperature (core average)	Delta Temperature	Noise Level
CRYORIG A40	Liquid	100%	24.00	59.00	35.00	54dB
Scythe Fuma	Air	100%	22.00	58.00	36.00	44dB
Alpenföhn Atlas	Air	100%	21.00	58.00	37.00	39dB
Noctua NH-U12S	Air	100%	21.00	59.00	38.00	38dB
NZXT Kraken X31	Liquid	100%	22.00	61.00	39.00	39dB
be quiet! Dark Rock TF	Air	100%	21.00	63.00	42.00	38dB
Cryorig H7	Air	100%	22.00	65.00	43.00	41dB

In our 4.4GHz test at a voltage of 1.312 volts the CRYORIG A40 still manages to hold on to the lead with its maximum CPU temperature of 59 degrees Celsius (a Delta of 35), just one degree less than the next best cooler. But what’s harder for us to test is the cooling capacity of the Airflow fan that’s designed to blow air over the MB heatsinks/VRMs. I therefore can only assume (given CRYORIG’s data) that this fan is doing its job also.

Acoustics

Well we touched on this earlier, but now it’s time to look (or is that listen) at the A40’s noise levels, that are in fact the noisiest that I’ve tested thus far. Simply put 54dBA is too loud even if you are Gaming with a Headset on, unless your PC is in your neighbours house that is! 😉

But we always test all CPU Coolers with all fans at 100% as that way it balances the playing field. But this time around, as I would consider 54dBA to be too loud, I did some additional testing. With the PWM control in the UEFI set at Standard (and not Full Speed) I was able to reduce noise levels to a far better 47dBA, still loud but fine for Gaming with a headset on IMHO. Luckily the cooling performance dropped by just 1 degree. Of course as the cooler is PWM controlled you can play with the performance/noise ratio to your hearts content via the UEFI of your chosen MB.

Final Thoughts

The CRYORIG A40 is not only the best performing CPU Cooler we’ve tested so far but it’s also a good looking cooler and well made too! But the icing on the cake is surely the fact that it cools parts of your PC no other cooler can. And all this for just £75!

The A40 arrived at pcG in a large smart box with everything well packaged and presented, although I’m still not a fan of the egg-carton styled eco packaging used by most AIO coolers. Un-boxing the A40 is pretty much the same as any other AIO CPU Cooler, we have a radiator attached by tubing to a pump head and some fans. But hold on what’s the extra fan for? The additional (70mm Airflow fan) is really what makes the A40 (and its derivatives the A40 Ultimate & A80) rather special, as this fan is designed to cool the MB heatsinks/VRMs also. It’s a clever and dare I say a sensible idea and I’m sure we’ll see more of this in the future. What’s also interesting is that it gives the CPU Cooler a somewhat new/interesting aesthetic.

Installation was also a breeze with very few parts to get concerned about; a simple backplate is attached by way of four threaded posts and the pump head is simply then secured by way of four nuts. This is made all the easier by the fact that the Intel retention ring is already fitted as is the thermal paste pre-applied. The only thing that caught me off guard was the fitment of the Airflow fan atop the pump head. This can be fitted to either push or pull air (I opted for push) by clipping the fan into position, but the flange on the fan seemed at odds with the slot on the pump head. Yet a little bit of brute force saw the fan clip into place with ease, so there was no real cause for concern.

As you can see from the results above the CRYORIG A40 performed extremely well bettering the cooling performance of all other CPU Coolers we’ve tested on our new(ish) Z170 Test Rig. Cooling was particularly good at stock speeds (3.9GHz) with a Delta of just 18.00 degrees Celsius, three degrees better than the next best cooler. Performance was also good in our overclocked test (4.4GHz @ 1.312v) with a maximum CPU core temperature of 59 degrees Celsius (35 Delta). But of course there’s the associated noise of 54dBA, at full speed the A40 is noisy, yet I managed to drop this to a far better 47dBA thanks to the cooler’s PWM control. This resulted in performance (at 4.4GHz) dropping by just one degree.

But let’s not forget about the A40’s ace up its sleeve in the form of that Airflow Cooler. Now although it’s almost impossible to prove how well/or not it performs there’s no denying that it makes sense. And, from what we’ve seen from CRYORIG’s data it really does seem to work. This is also more relevant as today’s CPUs simply just don’t get that hot any more, even with lesser cooler attached! Therefore it’s nice to see someone thinking outside the box a little…

Summing up the CRYORIG A40 and giving it a Gold award would be easy, but to be fair that’s maybe not enough. As not only do we have a great performing, easy to install, well made CPU Cooler in the A40, but we also have a cooler that can cool parts of your PC no other cooler can! And it is this that pushes the CRYORIG A40 into Platinum award territory. Then the price of just £75 (at the time of review) simply seals the award. Good job CRYORIG!