Gelid GX-7 Review
Overview
Today I will be looking at the Gelid GX-7
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The Gelid GX-7 comes packed in a black and aqua designed cardboard box with a plastic carry handle on the top. On the front of the box is a picture of the Gelid GX-7 itself together with a list of sockets that the CPU cooler is compatible with.
On the rear of the box are three different sections. Under the section called ‘Applications’ is a list of all the Intel and AMD sockets and CPU’s that the Gelid GX-7 can be used with. Below that is the ‘Installation Kit’ section with pictures of the Mounting Clips for both AMD and Intel sockets, Universal Back-plate and the required screws are also shown. In the last section entitled ‘Air Flow Concept’ are two diagrams depicting how the air has been designed to flow through the Gelid GX-7.
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On the left-hand side of the box under a section called ‘Main Features’ are six icons detailing the main features of the Gelid GX-7 which include 7 Power Heatpipes, Nanoflux Bearing (NFB), LED Light, Silent Operation, Detachable Impeller and PWM Control. There are also three pictures of the Heat sink design, with the last two showing the special array that Gelid has used to take full of advantage of all 7 heatpipes.
On the right-hand side of the box are two sections. The first section contains details about the 7 Power Heatpipes, Unique Heat Sink Design, Multi-Award Winning Wing 12 PL Blue Fan and PWM Fan Control. Below that is a section that details all the specifications of the Gelid GX-7 as well as a list of contents that are included in the box.
Opening the box reveals the contents inside which includes the Gelid GX-7 cooler itself (contained in a clear protective plastic container), a White Cardboard Box (containing all the Mounting Clips, Screws and Accessories (see later)) and a set of Installation Instructions covering five different languages.
The Gelid GX-7 comes with a 3 year warranty and was retailing for approximately £36 at the time of this review.
Specifications/Features
courtesy of Gelid
| Intel Sockets |
775, 1366, 1155, 1156
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| AMD Sockets | AM2, AM2+, AM3, AM3+, FM1 |
| Heatpipes |
7 (Unique Heatpipe Arrangement)
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| Fan | Wing 12 PL Blue |
| Air Flow (CFM/CMH) |
75.6/128.6
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| Bearing | Nanoflux Bearing |
| Cable Length (mm) |
500
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| Current (A) | 0.45 |
| DC Voltage (V) |
12
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| Fan Dimensions (mm) |
120(l)x120(w)x25(h)
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| Fan Speed (RPM) |
600-1800
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| Heat Sink Dimensions (mm) | 130(l)x65(w)x159(h) |
| LED Colour |
Blue
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| Life Time MTTF At 40C (h) | 100’000 |
| Noise Level (dBA) |
10-26.8
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| Number Of LED | 4 |
| Static Pressure (mmAq) |
2.66
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| Weight (g) | 720 (Heatsink And Fan) |
| Warranty (years) |
3
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* Additional details available here
First Impressions
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Initial impressions of the Gelid GX-7 are good. The CPU Cooler comes packed in a clear plastic container and both the fan and heat sink can be clearly seen inside. Opening the container allows a closer inspection of the fan and heat sink which I will be looking at in more detail later on.
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The box also comes with a white cardboard box and opening it up reveals a bag inside containing the mounting clips, back-plate, screws and accessories.
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Taking the contents out of the bag allows a closer inspection as to what is actually included. The screws, fittings and accessories are contained in their own bag as are the mounting clips and back-plate and four metal fan clips are also included.
The four metal fan clips allow the fan to be clipped to the heat sink. Only two are required per fan but since the Gelid GX-7 supports the use of two fans (only one is supplied however), allowing for a push/pull air flow configuration if you so wish, an additional two are supplied should you wish to add an additional fan later on.
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The mounting clips provided allow the Gelid GX-7 to be used with a variety of Intel and AMD socket types. A Universal Back-plate, x2 Intel Mounting Clips and an AMD Mounting Clip are provided to suit your own installation needs. Since my motherboard has an AM3+ socket, I will not be using the two included Intel mounting clips.
Also included are a variety of screws and accessories which include x4 Mounting Clip Screws, x4 Back-Plate Screws, x4 Stand-Off Fasteners, x4 Spring Loaded Nuts, x4 Black Insulating Spacers, GC-2 Thermal Compound and a Gelid Sticker.
So that’s all the fittings and accessories covered, now it’s time to take a look at what’s going to be keeping the CPU itself cool, the fan and the heat sink.
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The fan that comes included is a Gelid Wing 12 PL (Blue). A green version of the fan is also available to purchase and could make for some interesting lighting inside your case should you choose to attach both to the heat sink! The main features of the fan include:
- Nanoflux Bearing (NFB)
- Optimized Winglet Fan Blades
- PWM Control
- Blue LED Light
- Detachable Impeller
- Long Lifetime (100’000 h MTTF at 40°C)
The Nanoflux Bearing is designed to ensure a ‘friction-free and silent operation’ so it will be interesting to see how the fan actually performs and sounds. The fan also comes with PWM control which should hopefully make the fan less noisy when no additional cooling is required (my existing Corsair A50 fan is quite noisy as it runs constantly flat out at 2000 RPM even when idle!). The inclusion of a detachable impeller is also a nice touch as it makes the fan a lot easier to clean. A blue LED light is also embedded into the fan which should please those that like things to light up!
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The single tower design heat sink comes with a uniquely designed heatpipe arrangement, this allows the GX-7 to take full advantage of all 7 6mm heatpipes for maximum heat transfer capacity. The design moves the two most outermost heatpipes towards the center, potentially allowing more heat to now be removed from the CPU.
The fins in the middle of the heat sink are designed in a V-shape as shown in the overhead picture above. This apparently ‘allows the cooling air to reach the heat sink module more evenly’. Openings inside the heat sink and near the heatpipes ‘lets fresh air flow in from the top and bottom to zones normally poorly ventilated and eliminates the creation of hotspots’.
The design of the heat sink also allows for the support of dual fans as previously mentioned earlier with the inclusion of the two additional metal fan clips.
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Overall I really like the design of the Gelid GX-7 CPU cooler which has some unique and interesting features and is certainly nice to look at (I can’t wait to see it lit up!). At the time of this review the Gelid GX-7 was retailing for around £36 which certainly seems quite competitively priced.
(The eagle-eyed among you may notice that I installed the fan the wrong way round while taking the above set of pictures, this was of course rectified when I actually installed the Gelid GX-7 into my rig!)
Hardware Installation
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The supplied installation instructions detail each of the specific steps that are required for installation onto either an AMD or Intel type socket. The following lists the steps taken while installing the CPU cooler onto the AM3+ socket on my rigs motherboard. The image above shows the parts that are required to fit the Gelix-G7 to the AM3+ socket.
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Before any assembly can take place, a decision has to made as to how the heat sink is going to be orientated with regards to the socket. The supplied AMD mounting clip can be attached in one of two positions as shown in the pictures above, which allows the heat sink to be facing either towards the back of the case or towards the top of the case. I really like this implementation as it means I can orientate the Gelid GX-7 any way that I like, thus preventing any potential conflicts that may occur with any of the other components in the case e.g memory modules.
- Step One
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So with that being said, the AMD mounting clip was attached to the heat sink using the supplied four screws. With the way the clip has been oriented, the heat sink when attached will be facing towards the rear of the case, so any hot air will be expelled by the fan situated at the rear of the case.
- Steps Two & Three
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The next two steps are to attach the back-plate to the back of the motherboard. Four black insulating spacers are provided which are attached to each of the mounting hole locations on the front of the motherboard. With the insulated side of the back-plate facing towards the motherboard, the four screws are fed through each of the holes in the back-plate and pushed up through the motherboards mounting holes as shown in the pictures above.
The supplied stand-off fasteners are then tightened down onto each of the four screws, holding the back-plate firmly in place.
- Step Four
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With the back-plate installed, the next step is to attach the heat sink. To keep tests consistent, I will be applying Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (rather than the supplied GC-2 Thermal Compound) to the CPU prior to mounting the heat sink.
With the base of the heat sink mounted onto the CPU, the four spring loaded nuts must now be tightened to hold the heat sink firmly in place, as shown in the picture above. (Note that the heat sink shown in the picture was initially orientated towards the top of the case. This was due to the fact, that my initial installation of the Gelid GX-7 was done to replicate how my Corsair A50 was fitted, but was later on changed.)
- Step Five & Final Installation
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The final step of the installation is to attach the included fan. The kit comes with four metal fan clips which allow you to attach one fan to each side of the heat sink should you choose to do so. Since only one fan was provided, only two of the clips are required. The clips themselves slot into the holes on the fan and hook round the sides of the heat sink, holding the fan in place. The pictures above show the final installation with the fan attached.
I have to admit, when initially installing the Gelid GX-7 the same way as my Corsair A50 I came across no problems at all and the installation itself was quite easy. It was only when I came to orientate the Gelid GX-7 with the heat sink facing the rear of the case that I had some issues. The main problem was how fiddly the spring nuts became as it now didn’t seem there was enough space to be able to actually screw them in! I eventually had to have the screwdriver set at an angle, as the heat sink was now getting in the way and it was hard to tighten the spring loaded nuts. This may only be an issue with the installation on an AMD based socket as the angled Intel mounting clips might help alleviate this issue.
- Fan LED Lighting
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As the Gelid GX-7 comes with blue LED lighting on the fan, it was only right that I powered up my rig to show the results, of which can be seen in the picture above.
So with the Gelid GX-7 CPU cooler now connected to my own rig, it was time to test the actual cooling performance.
Testing Methodology/Setup
The Gelid GX-7 was tested using my rig with a current installation of Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit (service pack 1) installed together with all the latest relevant drivers and software.
The CPU was put under stress by running Prime95 for 30 minutes each run. The cooling performance of the Gelid GX-7 was monitored by taking readings at both the start and end of each run with a 15 minute cool-down period allowed between each run. Each run was performed with the CPU set at 4.1GHz (High) and then 4.6GHz (Extreme) and the maximum CPU temperature and fan speed were measured.
A variety of utilities were used to monitor the CPU cooler during testing including:
Hardware Performance
- Gelid GX-7 Cooling Results (@ 3.6GHz, 4.1GHz & 4.6GHz)
| CPU Frequency | CPU Voltage | Ambient Temperature | CPU Temp | Delta Temperature | Max CPU Fan Speed |
| 3.6GHz | 1.332 | 23.90 | 29.00 | 5.10 | 709 |
| 3.6GHz | 1.332 | 23.90 | 47.00 | 23.10 | 1112 |
| 4.1GHz | 1.368 | 23.90 | 51.00 | 27.10 | 1264 |
| 4.6GHz | 1.425 | 23.90 | 58.00 | 34.10 | 1513 |
| Idle (3.6GHz) | Load (3.6GHz) | High Load (4.1GHz) | Extreme Load (4.6GHz) |
- Cooling Results Comparison @ 3.6GHz (1.332v)
| CPU Cooler | CPU Temp |
| Gelid GX-7 | 47.00 |
| Corsair A50 | 45.00 |
- Cooling Results Comparison @ 4.1GHz (1.368v)
| CPU Cooler | CPU Temp |
| Gelid GX-7 | 51.00 |
| Corsair A50 | 49.00 |
- Cooling Results Comparison @ 4.6GHz (1.425v)
| CPU Cooler | CPU Temp |
| Gelid GX-7 | 58.00 |
| Corsair A50 | 56.00 |
The Gelid GX-7 certainly seems to be able to hold its own when it comes to cooling performance. As the results show the CPU temperature sits at a comfortable 29 degrees when idle and the PWM fan control is doing its job by limiting the fan speed with a maximum of 709 RPM measured and can hardly be heard. This increases to 47 degrees with a maximum fan speed of 1112 RPM when running under load at the stock speed of (3.6GHz).
Under high load (4.1GHz) the CPU temperature is maintained at 51 degrees with a maximum RPM of 1264 measured and under extreme load (4.6GHz) the CPU temperature is maintained at 58 degrees with an increase in the fan speed to 1513 RPM. Considering the fan never runs at its 1800 RPM maximum and certainly isn’t noisy when it hits 1500 RPM, the Nanoflux Bearing certainly seems to be doing its job!
Considering there is only a 2 degree difference between the Gelid GX-7 and the Corsair A50, that’s quite impressive, especially when you consider that the Corsair A50 is constantly running at 2000 RPM and is therefore more noisy for an extra 2 degrees of cooling.
Final Thoughts
The Gelid GX-7
The performance of the Gelid GX-7 in my opinion seemed quiet good, compared to the performance of my existing Corsair A50 there was only 2 degrees less cooling and it was also a lot more quiet due to the Nanoflux Bearing and low fan speeds courtesy of the PWM control. An additional fan could be added to the heat sink in its dual fan configuration to increase performance even more, although this would affect both the overall cost and the running noise.
With the current price of the Gelid GX-7 currently retailing for around £36 it certainly seems to represent value for money, especially since the fan itself retails for around £18 on its own. You’re getting good cooling performance, reasonably quiet operation with its PWM control and LED lighting all rolled into one!
Overall, the Gelid GX-7 seems to tick a lot of boxes, so if you’re on the lookout for a CPU air cooler then the Gelid GX-7 might just be one to consider.
Verdict
| Design/Quality |  |
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| Performance | |
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