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Introduction

Hello all and welcome back to my never ending quest to find the best air cooling solutions from across the globe. Today we have in our hands a new cooler called the Coolink Corator DS. I would like to thank Kolink International for sending us the cooler.

Kolink International Corporation is a cooling specialist established in 1996 and well known amongst industry insiders. Through the years, Kolink designed and manufactured many top-performing heat-sinks, under various different brand names. An experienced R&D team and ultra-modern production plants in Taiwan ensures continuous progress, efficient manufacturing conditions and strict quality standards.

Kolink’s retail brand, “Coolink” stands for an effective conjunction of no-frills performance, excellent quality and attractive pricing. While Coolink held a strong presence in the South East Asian markets ever since the late 90′s, it was not until 2005 that the brand was introduced to the European market on a large scale. After the launch of Coolink-Europe.com in late 2005, Coolink has quickly become a well recognized brand for high-quality cooling components.

As many of you may remember, there was a lot of buzz around this particular cooler a few weeks ago considering the new base setup that the company had worked on. Well, it looks like the new idea does work well, but lets analyze that later in the review. Let’s first take a look at the specifications:

There are a couple of things that stand out from the list above:

1. This is a complete package with all the necessary mounts thrown in
2. You do not need to buy a fan
3. The copper base and heatpipes – look out for this
4. Its heavy!!!

The first two points have been a major point of contention, as most top coolers come without the AMD mounting system and a packaged fan. Coolink’s approach in a way is refreshing, since they follow the approach of Noctua and believe in providing a complete package rather than just selling individual components based on requirements.

The Package

This cooler came to me all the way from Europe, without a single scratch or dent and that goes a long way in proving the robustness of the package.

The front of the box has some classy graphics along with a picture of the actual product. As you can see the box is a little beat up from the long flight from Europe, but that is to be expected, as I feel way worse after any long flight myself.

The rear of the box has a few pictures of the product as well as the fan. The picture to note is that of the base.

The side of the box gives a few interesting details about the product itself as well as a small write up on GDT (gapless Direct Touch) technology that is used on the base of the heatsink. It also mentions some of the other noteworthy features of the product, such as the addition of a TIM, the mounting system and some details of the packaged PWM fan.

Finally the other side gives the technical details of the product itself, along with a few specifications.

Meet the Beast

Upon opening the box you are greeted by two cardboard boxes, one of which contains the cooler and fan, and the other contains all the accessories. The accessories consist of the fan, which is packaged with the cooler, the mounting clips (one set), the AMD and Intel mounting systems, a tube of the company’s own paste and two product sheets, one each for AMD and Intel mounting setups. Of particular interest at this point is the fact that the Corator uses the SecuFirm2 mounting system, which was first introduced to us by Noctua. On looking at both the systems, one can tell that it is the exact same mounting system as the one on the NH D14.

The Corator ships with Chillaramic thermal paste, which seems to be of good quality. This can also be bought separately in 10 gm tubes. Overall, I was quite happy with the temperatures that I recorded with the included paste, but for the purpose of this review we used MX-3.

Now let’s take a look at the cooler itself.

The Corator is a twin tower cooler, with four massive 8 mm heatpipes doing the duty of taking the heat away from your CPU and to the aluminum fins. It come pre-mounted with a fan as well as the anti vibration strips. As you can see from the picture above, the gap between the fins are quite large and the fins are also dimpled, to increase the amount of heat dissipation area. Overall the finish of the product is at par with the best and there are absolutely no complaints on this front.

When we look at the cooler from a side-on view, we can see the installed fan.

The included fan is a PWM fan and can be controlled with various software, as well as through the bios. The fan runs between 800 and 1700 rpm, with a maximum sound of 27 dBa. The fan has a hydro dynamic bearing and this is of a much better specification than your normal sleeve bearing fans.

The fan overall has nice aesthetics, and personally, I love the colors as its very different from your normal black and blue fans. The wires are also sleeved in heatshrink. I only wish that they had used normal sleeve for the fan as sleeved wire goes a long way as far as aesthetics are concerned.

Finally, we come to the most important aspect of this cooler, the base. The Corator uses a Gapless Direct Touch (GDT) base, which is a first in air cooling overall. The GDT base uses the positives of the HDT system, along with the positives of the normal direct touch base. What they have basically done is to have the heatpipes directly in touch with the CPU IHS and used copper rather than aluminum for the gaps between the heat pipes. The picture below will probably go a long way in helping you understand the concept.

It is pretty easy to make out the difference between the copper heatpipes and the copper base in the picture above. Overall the finish of the base is extremely good, with no curvature in the surface.

Overall I see a lot of similarities to the Noctua coolers.

I would like to add that the first two ram slots do get blocked with this cooler and two fans, so only low profile ram will work if you plan to use all four slots.

Lets now move on to the testing area and check out what this beast has to offer.

Test Results

Now we move on to the most important part of the review and that’s the testing. In the past we have done various comparisons, but we have never worked on more than two coolers at a time. I am happy to report that I have done some extensive testing on four coolers and four more will be added to this list over the next month or so.

We have tested each cooler with 3 mounts, recorded temperatures using OCCT for a one hour period and have recorded ambients for each and every test. The graphs below give us the best out of these results.

The results will be calculated with a base ambient and additions and subtractions will be made to the results taking this number. So if the base ambient is 25 degrees, then a cooler tested at 27 degrees will have 2 degrees deducted from its final readings. All testing was done in a closed case.

The idea here is to have a comprehensive view on AMD cooling solutions over a period of time.

Now moving on to the test bench, which will remain the same for all the coolers that we have tested so far and for a few more in the near future.

Test Setup:

AMD 965 BE C3 @ 3.4 Ghz (1.25V) and 4.0 Ghz (1.525V)

2 X Scythe 1850 Gentle Typhoons Push/Pull

OCZ 1600 Mhz Platinum LV

MSI GD70 790FX Motherboard

Sapphire 5850 @ Stock

The Competition:

Coolink Corator DS

Thermalright Venemous X

Thermolab Baram

Corsair H50

The reason for using this setup in a closed case is to try and judge real world results rather than just open cased benching results, though I must admit that the system in use is optimized for high air flow in the cpu region.

So lets start at stock settings with an undervolt to 1.25V.

The Coolink Corator performs extremely well in this test, coming very close to unseating the Venemous from its top spot. Its about three degrees better than the Thermolab and close to three and a half degrees better than the Corsair.

Let us now move on to the overclocked results.

Conclusion

When we finally come down to the basics, the Corator is an innovative product, with a great package and a superb result to boot. Taking into account that this is their first branded product, I am extremely pleased with the results. I would go so far as to say that I am extremely eager to see what they come up with next.

Pros:

• Great package with everything included.
• Great performance
• Good quality fan and thermal paste included in the package
• Excellent build quality
• Great mounting system and easy to install
• Price

Cons:

• Only one fan can be used with the cooler, we used rubber bands to keep two fans going
• Size and weight – please check your motherboard and case before buying. Height is not much of an issue but width is

For a MSRP of USD 60, this is a great product and gives full value for your hard earned money.  Check out the “Where to buy” section on the Coolink web page for online vendors in your area.

The Coolink Corator DS CPU-Cooler receives the TechREACTION.net Gold Silicon Award!

Be sure to check out TestFreaks for more expert reviews on the Coolink Corator DS.