AR06

This proved to be an excellent CPU cooling option for my PC. Using an older mid-tower chassis with an Intel I7-377k (not overclocked), running a single exhaust fan in the back (92x92mm), 16GB RAM and a video card. The ambient temperature is about 32 °C, being in the tropics. With the stock Intel heat sink and fan, the temperature of the CPU was about 14 °C above ambient, in the range of 44 to 46 °C without any load. Using Skype or any VOIP applications will push the temperatures closer to 60 °C.After replacing the stock Intel cooler with the AR02 in May2014, the CPU temperature when idle is about 8 °C above ambient at 34 to 36 °C. At similar loads as above, the temperature rarely goes about 42 -44 °C, even with a single 92x92mm exhaust.Subsequently, added two intake fans (two Cougar Vortex 120mm) and replaced the rear fan with a Noctua 92mm to improve the air flow. Added a few Silverstone Tek 120mm Ultra fine fan filters to reduce the dust intake as well. I bought one from here, but the rest from ebay. But are even cheaper from the external store website of the ebay seller. Discovered it only after buying from ebay.Installation itself was easy, having upgraded the motherboard and processor about an year ago, the previous experience helped with the task. Had to remove the existing CPU air intake duct from the chassis. As mentioned in the other reviews here and elsewhere, the instructions need a magnifier to read. The video on the manufacturer's website helps a bit. The holes on the rear bracket not always match. Just match one or two holes and go with whatever hole that coordinates well while looking from the front of the motherboard. Keeping the chassis flat on its side is a must for installing this as with any CPU heat sinks. Positioned the heat sink so that the fan is blowing from front to the back and the air flow is vented by the rear fan. Both fans are almost in a straight line to facilitate this. The full assembly took about 30 minutes with all components ready and also using a magnifier to study the little diagrams on the instruction sheet.As mentioned in questions and answers, the heat sink projects 138mm from the motherboard surface. Still leaves about an inch inside my chassis. Did not have any issues with overhang over the RAM as I have two 8 GB modules with the other two slots empty.Did some research on positioning of the heat sink itself, especially of the heat pipes. My installation has the heat pipes in a sideways U configuration with the U lying on its left side. With sintered heat pipes (most of this type of heat sinks have sintered heat pipes), the positioning of the heat pipes, except for upside down, with the ends pointing down, does not matter.Hope this helps.Update on 13-April-2015:The PC is still going strong. Upgraded to a home grown wooden PC case, to improve the air flow, with better cable management and 3 120mm fans for intake and one 120mm fan for exhaust. The CPU temperature is 1 to 2 °C above ambient (tropical climate) without load. With load, spikes to 7 to 8 °C above ambient and comes down to aforementioned temperatures quickly.

So I'm putting together a HTPC with some old parts, and some new. I've got a AMD A10-5700 as the foundation, and a Gigabyte GT 1030 Silent Low Profile card running the graphics. That's a passive card with no fan, only a big heat sink. This is all going into a InWin CE-685 case, roughly the size of an Xbox. Needless to say, it gets hot in there, and my CPU was having some thermal issues.I was initially using an old-model AMD Stealth CPU cooler, and it wasn't remotely doing the job. Idle temps with HWINFO (CPU Package TSI - the temps inside the CPU cores) were around 60 degrees C, and under load it was getting as high as 82 degrees C. That's obviously too hot. There's only so much I can do about the airflow in that case, so replacing the CPU cooler was my best option.It's a very small mATX case, 3.8" wide. CPU cooler clearance is an issue. I wasn't sure if this Silverstone cooler would fit, but it turned out to be almost exactly the same height as the other cooler, so clearance wasn't a problem. RAM clearance wasn't an issue either, it's not a large unit. Installation on the FM2 socket board wasn't difficult at all - I've done much worse. It has brackets that will fit Intel and AMD boards of a variety of sockets. Included thermal paste is decent Thermaltake stuff, nothing special though.So I put it all back together and powered it on, ran a video and did some stress tests... Idle CPU temps around 45-50 C range, under load it's 60-65 range. Not bad at all. That AMD chip runs a little hot normally, so those temps are acceptable to me. It's a 15-20 C improvement over the previous cooler, and it's dead silent to boot.I'm very happy with this one, and would definitely recommend it for SFF builds. I'l definitely use this one again on future builds.

Pros:-Small-Effective (my CPU never reaches above 80 c. This may seem a bit high, but I have this thing in a small case with limited airflow)-Looks niceCons:-Nothing other than the fan being just a tad bit noisyIn general this is a great CPU cooler for its size. If you are looking to build a system within a limited space, you can't go wrong with the AR06. My temperatures go from around 38 c idle to 75 c under load. If these numbers seem high, don't worry too much. My AR06 is in a small case (the Silverstone RVZ01 to be exact), so it doesn't enjoy a lot of fresh, cold air. In fact, I have my GPU fans blowing pretty much right on top of this. Even under these non-ideal conditions, my CPU still hasn't gone anywhere above 80 c.Now to address my one complaint. It is a 4 pin, and therefore a PWM fan, meaning that the speed of the fan is controlled by pulses sent by your computer. Now this is great, as it allows for software fan control. However, the fan on this has a minimum RPM of about 1200 and a max of 2500 RPM. My complaint is with this lower end. Since the minimum is a whole 1200 RPM, making my minimum dB level a bit higher than I'd like. Noctua's slim 92mm fan, on the other hand, has a minimum rotational speed of 500 RPM, allowing for better control.Second complaint: I don't know if it's the AR06 or my motherboard, but the mounting holes for LGA 115X don't seem to line up very well. It's not to the point where it's impossible to install, but I must say that it was quite annoying. I won't dock any stars for that, but just FYI...All in all, still a great CPU cooler considering its size and price. If you need a small form factor CPU cooler, you can't go wrong with this one!