INTRODUCTION

   Yesterday we had to turn on both air conditioners to keep the temperature in our lab at 23 degrees in order to wrap up some tests since according to our Oregon Scientific weather station temperature outside was roughly 33 degrees Celsius. Summer is (almost) over however and so i expect temperatures to drop rapidly by the end of September which is good news for us since that will allow us to do our jobs easier. Now as most of you know Intel announced their X99 mainboard chipset a few days back along with their new 59xx line of Core i7 CPUs and although we will not be reviewing either (well we may just review the mainboard model we will be using) we plan on replacing our Core i7-920 system with a brand new Core i7-5930x one which will of course become our primary test rig and move our Core i7-3930x one in second place. Until that happens however we will continue to test products with our Core i7-3930x rig and today strapped on it we have the latest Grandis XE1239 CPU Cooler by SilentiumPC.

   Established in 2007 in Warsaw, Poland SilentiumPC brand is the business division of Cooling.pl, family owned distribution company specialized in high-end cooling solutions. Since then we bring high-quality silent PC cases, power supplies and cooling solutions that simply get the job done without breaking the bank. And how we do it? Well, we share the old-school belief that good products are the key to success. No aggressive marketing, no flashy banners everywhere, no mighty slogans. Instead we’re putting our efforts in effective design and smart cost-cutting so you get no fancy boxes or stuff you don’t need, just the pure essence of functionality at unbeatable prices. Product development process is focused on user-experience, how the product will function, how you will interact with it. We start from asking the right questions to the right people and choosing the most desired features.

   The Grandis XE1236 is the first attempt by SilentiumPC to create a dual-heatsink CPU air cooler but instead of following the example of most manufacturers in the market they decided to use two relatively small heatsinks so whereas for example the latest NH-D15 by Noctua measures 165x150x135mm (H,W,L) the Grandis XE1236 measures just 158x130x105mm. According to SilentiumPC they followed this path because they wanted to allow mounting of the cooler inside small PC cases (cost should be lower as well) so if you're after high cooling efficiency i can tell you right from the get go that the Grandis XE1236 wasn't designed to meet your needs. Still it's a dual heatsink tower that comes ready with two ultra-silent hydraulic-bearing 120mm fans (you can even mount a third one at the rear if you want better performance) so we are indeed quite curious to see how it compares against similar solutions.

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

The Grandis XE1236 gets sold inside a white box with a product image at the front right beneath the company logo.

You can find the specifications and socket compatibility table on the left side.

Two product pictures pointing at the top and bottom of the cooler are placed on the right.

At the rear we see two 2D barcodes and a product description in 3 languages.

Inside the box you will find the main body of the cooler with one 120mm fan pre-mounted, 120mm fan, 4 metal fan mounts, Allen key, 4pin fan Y-splitter, thermal paste tube, installation instructions and all the necessary bits and pieces to install the cooler on Intel LGA775/1150/1155/1156/1366/2011 and AMD AM2/AM2+/AM3/AM3+/FM1/FM2 compatible mainboards.

THE GRANDIS XE1236

As mentioned in the introduction page the Grandis XE1236 measures 158mm in height, 130mm in width and 105mm in length (with just the one fan installed it weighs 848g).

Although both heatsinks are smaller than what we see with other coolers still SilentiumPC has squeezed a total of 47 aluminum fins on each.

The 120mm fan sandwiched between the two heatsinks is mounted on the rear one.

As you can see the Grandis XE1236 has room for up to three 120mm fans (front, center, rear).

There are six 6mm all-copper heatpipes that leave the base of the cooler and travel through both heatsinks.

Unfortunately the all-copper base of the Grandis XE1236 came with several machine marks on it.

The fans SilentiumPC used with the Grandis XE1236 are of their GF12025 line although the sticker behind them has the name of the cooler.

With both fans installed the Grandis XE1236 measures 130mm in length (depth) and weighs 965g.

TEST BED

TESTING METHODOLOGY 

   We always take things quite seriously when it comes to work so just like with the previous LGA1366 database we will not be testing each CPU Cooler on its own and with different ambient temperature levels and thus we can actually have yet another valid CPU Cooler database. Testing a CPU Cooler automatically means that you need to know where it stands against the immediate competition and to accomplish that we have spent both money and time through the years, something that we plan to continue to do so in order to get the most accurate results for the end consumers who read these lines. Every CPU cooler in this database is tested with the bundled 140mm/120mm/92mm/80mm fans while working at both idle speed and 100% of their speeds for all the temperature tests. CPU Coolers that do not come bundled with a fan/s are measured using a Noctua fan (size dependent on the model) to test for the temperature tests but due to the lack of a stock fan dBA level tests are obviously skipped. Single (120/140mm) watercooling solutions are tested with the radiator mounted at the rear of our test rig while dual/triple/quad (240/260/280/360/420/480/560mm) solutions with the radiator mounted at the top. For the dBA tests every cooler in the database was measured both while on idle mode or with the fan controller in the minimum setting and while on extreme load or with the fan controller all the way to the highest possible setting (PWM fans do that on their own without our intervention). Every single test takes place in a temperature controlled room of 23 degrees Celsius Ambient Temp with the help of two AC units placed diagonally inside the room. The Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste is used with every CPU Cooler in our latest LGA2011 database (although initially this was not the plan we had to change things to get the most accurate results). Finally it's very important to point out that just because a CPU Cooler is better than another when tested with our test rig that does not necessarily mean that the same performance differences will apply 100% for other CPU models and in other situations (such as different ambient temps and system configurations).

     To successfully record the load temperatures we use the latest OCCT application for around 6-10 minutes to push the processor to its limits and after that is done and the temperatures are recorded we wait for about 10-20 minutes for the CPU to cool down and record the idle temperatures. This is done to allow time for the thermal conductive material to achieve the optimal performance level. Same procedure is then repeated with the Passmark BurnIn Test as a failsafe just in case the OCCT results are wrong. This procedure takes a lot more time than the usual peltier/thermometer tests but this way not only can we deliver real world results to our readers based on real CPUs but we can also triple check the results using a variety of programs. Last but not least the temperatures were recorded using both the latest versions of AIDA64 and RealTemp while the noise level tests are performed using a high precision ExTech HD600 Decibel Meter placed about 10-15cm above the CPU Cooler. Still although the same testing procedure applies to all units do take into consideration that unlike the official numbers which are measured in special noise isolated labs with just the fans here we also have both the rest of the cooler and the rest of the system (although all system fans are turned off when recording noise levels).

TEST RESULTS

CONCLUSION

   When i first heard that SilentiumPC was going to release a dual-tower CPU cooler named the Grandis XE1236 i thought it would just be yet another massive model like the NH-D14/15 by Noctua or the Silver Arrow by Thermalright so i did expect it to get really close to them in terms of performance. Of course since SilentiumPC aims in delivering cost-effective CPU coolers i never expected it to match those coolers but when i saw that it was actually quite smaller i was somewhat skeptical. Well as you can all see from our charts the Grandis XE1236 was unable to match the NH-D15 (or even the Archon X2 IB-E) but it performed better than we had hoped so add that to the relatively low noise levels coming from the two 120mm fans and it seems that the guys over at SilentiumPC knew what they were doing.

   SilentiumPC products are currently only available inside the EU so as we speak the Grandis XE1236 CPU Cooler currently retails for around 39Euros a price tag which is indeed a lot better than expected and should appeal especially to people who are looking for good cooling efficiency and low noise levels but are on a tight budget. The availability issue outside of the EU (and in some places inside the EU) seems to be the only serious problem SilentiumPC has with the Grandis XE1236 but they might be able to resolve this sooner rather than later. Still overall they have released a very good CPU Cooler (for the money) and that's why it gets our Golden Award.

PROS

- Good Build Quality
- Small Size (For A Dual Tower Solution)
- Dual 120mm Fans
- Ability to Add An 3rd Fan
- Noise Levels
- Price

CONS

- Availability