Cooler Master i71C RGB Intel Low-Profile CPU Air Cooler, Anodized Black Aluminum Fins, Copper Insert Base, MF120 RGB Lighting Fan for Intel LGA1200/115X Desktop

I'm not running any kind of overclocked monstrosity. I just have a simple, sleeper build. Basically it's a consumer-grade Acer mini tower with a micro ATX compact form gigabyte motherboard, i7-8700 processor, 64GB of 2666Mhz DDR4, and a 2TB NVMe drive running things. For graphics I'm running a Nvidia 2070 Super card.It's a lot of horsepower in a very tiny case so cooling was very important, and there was just no room for a water or hybrid setup. I ultimately decided on this cooler based on recommendations from other friends of mines with compact builds, and reading some of the reviews on here.I have to say I am impressed with the overall performance, package, and features available for a sub $20 purchase. the design of the fan itself is genius. You're basically running a 120mm fan that shoves air through a cowling into the heatsink which ends in a copper contact surface with your CPU.This is way Superior to aluminum because of the conductivity properties of copper. the design of the cowling allows air to not only be compressed but also flow faster on to the CPU for a larger and faster evacuation of hot air. With the physical benefits of side, this cooler is going to be a huge compliment to even the mildest aesthetic builds.You can practically just run this fan and it adds great lighting to the interior of your case. The included controller is fantastic for choosing multitude of colors, but it also comes with connectors that allow you to connect your own RGB controllers or connect directly to your motherboard.Right now I have my graphics card connected to the motherboard, but I plan on getting a splitter so that the cooler's controller can sync the lighting between the graphics card and the fan. If you're in a situation that you cannot afford water cooling due to costs, or in my case physical space but still need superior cooling, don't hesitate any longer and go pick this up.I've seen it range between $14 and $20 on here. I have already bought two of them and it's going to continue being my premier choice for air cooling whenever I need another one.

Installing was simple, but you need to take it slow and watch where the screws are at or it could scratch the PCB. My old cooler is a Noctua nh-l9i so I will compare from it for this review. Cooling in idle is 34c the same as the Noctua in Gaming the temps get no hotter that 65c (non CPU dependent games avg. was 56c) same as Noctua. Torture Testing with Prime95 for 15 minutes did get the temps on some cores to go to 78c which is 5c hotter, but well below the 100c threshold for the I7-8700 used so that is good. Fan noise is actually just a tad noisier when compared the Noctua which surprised me the most in a good way I was expecting a louder fan but pretty quiet for a cheap cooler. RGB lights are bright for a 4 point lighting colors are good, but for RGB Fusion Motherboards you will need either a 2.0 board or a controller hub for effects or you can use the included hub for limited effects. Height issues you have 45.5 mm clearance for RGB RAM, or tall heatsinks anything above 36 mm will require you to remove heatsink fist before installing or removing safely. With the temps I got in a well ventilated case I would only recommend this for CPUs that are not overclocked (non K mostly) so 85W TDP (65W for ITX Builds) CPUs (third gen or above) if you don't want the CPU going over 90c. I bought this for the RGB lighting and the price. This is overall a great product for the price, but as said earlier take it slow with the install and watch the screws while installing so you do not scratch the PCB.

Based on the listed dimensions of "120 x 120 x 60 mm / 4.7 x 4.7 x 2.36 inch" on Cooler Master's site, I was not confident at all that this would fit in my 2U case. I wasn't concerned about the height as much as I was the width - the available space I had between this motherboard's heatsink alongside the I/O panel, and the RAM slots didn't appear to be enough, but, as you can see from my pics, it fits well with a little room to spare!The main thing to remember is that the width of the top of this cooler is the 4.7 inches they refer to, whereas the section below it (the part that actually sits on your CPU) is about 3.5 inches wide, and gradually becomes wider as it rises up, certainly doable in practically any system setup I think.This is mounted on an mATX MSI z490M Gaming Edge motherboard with GSkill RAM in the 2nd and 4th slots. If I had 4 sticks of RAM, I could still fit them in next to this cooler. So, if your spacing seems tight and you're not sure about this cooler, I'd say go for it as it will mostly likely work. If you're tight on space on the back of the motherboard as well, this also comes with a minimalist backplate to attach this to, and is attached only with the applied adhesive strips so, nothing bulky on the backside either.Overall, compared to the stock intel cooler, this has brought my temps down by 10-15c on the high side when stress testing, and about 5c lower while idle. Cooler Master wins again! Love'em, great product.

This review is for the A71C ARGB cooler. I bought this to replace the Wraith Spire cooler that came with my Ryzen 7 1700. I can't say its a huge improvement in cooling as it cools just as well as the Wraith Spire but I honestly didn't get it for that. I bought this more for the rainbow spectrum of colors that the LEDs put off so as to match the rest of the lighting in my case. It looks just like the pictures display here IRL. Again cooling wise, it cools just fine despite some negative reviews I have read on this particular cooler. I will say if you plan on overclocking this is not the cooler for you, for that I would suggest something bigger that would move more air or a liquid cooler. This is a great cooler for a 65 watt CPU but anything more again I would suggest something better. If you want something that will cool on par with stock coolers that looks sharp in your case on the cheap, this cooler is the way to go.