Cooler Master GeminII: Performer or Poser?
by Wesley Fink on April 30, 2007 2:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Final Words
One look at the attractive Cooler Master GeminII and it is easy to understand why computer enthusiasts swoon over the possibilities of putting this cooler to work in their system. The GeminII combines an innovative design with the additional promise of cooling all the components on your motherboard. With the ability to use two 120mm fans side-by-side, blowing down from above the cantilevered heatpipe tower, your first thought is surely this is as good as cooling can get.
We were just as excited as our readers to test the GeminII. We also thought this would be cooler nirvana. There were a few cracks in the prospects in that none of the reviews so far had really compared the GeminII to a top cooler like the Thermalright Ultra 120 and the Tuniq Tower 120, but we considered that just an oversight. Perhaps more disturbing was the fact that reviews that only compared the GeminII to the stock Intel cooler did not show us results that caused much excitement. The GeminII is better than stock, but that should be the starting point with cooling upgrades - not the end point.
Now that we have thoroughly evaluated the GeminII there isn't much good to say about it, at least compared to the top coolers we have been testing recently. The GeminII is not a bad cooler; it is just not the great cooler we expected it to be. We have tested 21 cooler configurations in the last few months at AnandTech, and nine of those configurations overclock better than GeminII with the same CPU. That is before we even take in to account the fact that the GeminII uses two fans to, in many case, perform worse than a single 120mm fan.
On the cooling efficiency front, the GeminII is similarly average. Of the 21 measured temperatures, the GeminII is outperformed at idle by nine coolers; at load seven tested cooler configurations outperform the GeminII. Again we are often comparing one fan solutions that perform better than the two-fan GeminII configuration. To be fair, we have been testing the best coolers on the market for the last couple months, but there is no reason at all to expect the GeminII to fall short of the top performers. The fact that it does is disappointing.
We had planned to delve deeply into the purported benefits of a down-facing cooler also cooling motherboard components. That is now a moot point, however. Since the GeminII cannot match other top coolers in cooling efficiency or overclocking, who really cares if it cools your Northbridge better than a Thermalright Ultra 120? After all we are not using supplemental fans in our test case, and evidence that a cooler was cooling the motherboard chipset better would be extended overclocking from lower chipset/board temperatures. We feed significant voltages into the chipset in our overclocking tests, which must cycle at least 30 minutes in a gaming loop to be considered stable. Perhaps we will have better results with the Andy Samurai Master or the Thermaltake Max Orb, which are also top-fan coolers. If so, then we will do more than cursory measurements of motherboard component temperatures.
Perhaps with refinement the GeminII will join the top realm of air coolers. The GeminII concept seems to have merit, but the execution leaves much to be desired. If you look closely only about half the fins extend from the cooler CPU mounting plate to the extended fins on top - the rest merely expand the fin field for the cantilevered fan ledge. More active fins might help. The fin spacing is also too close for real airflow below the cooler. Put a hand beneath a cooler with 173+ CFM on top and you will be shocked at how little air makes its way to the motherboard. Perhaps the cantilever would be more effective at cooling if it was shorter, but then if it were much shorter you couldn't mount memory. There are certainly better minds designing coolers at Cooler Master than we have second guessing them here. We hope they will find ways to make GeminII the cooler we all hoped it would be.
We apologize if we sound overly negative about the performance of GeminII. As we already said, it is a good cooler, but not a great one. It does look great, and we all wanted it to perform as well as it looks. We sincerely hope the GeminII develops into the great performer we think it can be. The potential is certainly there, but for now the Cooler Master GeminII is a poser and not a performer. We expected more.
One look at the attractive Cooler Master GeminII and it is easy to understand why computer enthusiasts swoon over the possibilities of putting this cooler to work in their system. The GeminII combines an innovative design with the additional promise of cooling all the components on your motherboard. With the ability to use two 120mm fans side-by-side, blowing down from above the cantilevered heatpipe tower, your first thought is surely this is as good as cooling can get.
We were just as excited as our readers to test the GeminII. We also thought this would be cooler nirvana. There were a few cracks in the prospects in that none of the reviews so far had really compared the GeminII to a top cooler like the Thermalright Ultra 120 and the Tuniq Tower 120, but we considered that just an oversight. Perhaps more disturbing was the fact that reviews that only compared the GeminII to the stock Intel cooler did not show us results that caused much excitement. The GeminII is better than stock, but that should be the starting point with cooling upgrades - not the end point.
Now that we have thoroughly evaluated the GeminII there isn't much good to say about it, at least compared to the top coolers we have been testing recently. The GeminII is not a bad cooler; it is just not the great cooler we expected it to be. We have tested 21 cooler configurations in the last few months at AnandTech, and nine of those configurations overclock better than GeminII with the same CPU. That is before we even take in to account the fact that the GeminII uses two fans to, in many case, perform worse than a single 120mm fan.
On the cooling efficiency front, the GeminII is similarly average. Of the 21 measured temperatures, the GeminII is outperformed at idle by nine coolers; at load seven tested cooler configurations outperform the GeminII. Again we are often comparing one fan solutions that perform better than the two-fan GeminII configuration. To be fair, we have been testing the best coolers on the market for the last couple months, but there is no reason at all to expect the GeminII to fall short of the top performers. The fact that it does is disappointing.
We had planned to delve deeply into the purported benefits of a down-facing cooler also cooling motherboard components. That is now a moot point, however. Since the GeminII cannot match other top coolers in cooling efficiency or overclocking, who really cares if it cools your Northbridge better than a Thermalright Ultra 120? After all we are not using supplemental fans in our test case, and evidence that a cooler was cooling the motherboard chipset better would be extended overclocking from lower chipset/board temperatures. We feed significant voltages into the chipset in our overclocking tests, which must cycle at least 30 minutes in a gaming loop to be considered stable. Perhaps we will have better results with the Andy Samurai Master or the Thermaltake Max Orb, which are also top-fan coolers. If so, then we will do more than cursory measurements of motherboard component temperatures.
Perhaps with refinement the GeminII will join the top realm of air coolers. The GeminII concept seems to have merit, but the execution leaves much to be desired. If you look closely only about half the fins extend from the cooler CPU mounting plate to the extended fins on top - the rest merely expand the fin field for the cantilevered fan ledge. More active fins might help. The fin spacing is also too close for real airflow below the cooler. Put a hand beneath a cooler with 173+ CFM on top and you will be shocked at how little air makes its way to the motherboard. Perhaps the cantilever would be more effective at cooling if it was shorter, but then if it were much shorter you couldn't mount memory. There are certainly better minds designing coolers at Cooler Master than we have second guessing them here. We hope they will find ways to make GeminII the cooler we all hoped it would be.
We apologize if we sound overly negative about the performance of GeminII. As we already said, it is a good cooler, but not a great one. It does look great, and we all wanted it to perform as well as it looks. We sincerely hope the GeminII develops into the great performer we think it can be. The potential is certainly there, but for now the Cooler Master GeminII is a poser and not a performer. We expected more.
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PICBoy - Monday, April 30, 2007 - link
I know it's been a a while since Wesly reviewed the Katana and this space is reserved for the recently reviewed heatsink.But I wanted to know if AT is planning on a review about the "Katana 2" (now available @ FrozenCPU). I hope it's better than the Katana Cu and the regular Katana. I even hope to see it close to the Ninja!
That's all. Thanks!
Rocket321 - Monday, April 30, 2007 - link
I think this is an error at the bottom of page 2.
Wesley Fink - Monday, April 30, 2007 - link
Both editing errors corrected.herbiehancock - Monday, April 30, 2007 - link
I do appreciate the heatsink reviews AT and Wesley do...........but I have some observations to make about them.First, Wesley absolutely gushed over the SilenX fans....and was wowed by the 14dBA rating! Gosh....so quiet!
It certainly is too bad that Wesley did absolutely no research into the fans or testing of them. If he had he'd have found out they are absolutely nothing special and are mediocre at best. SPCR has done an indepth test of the SilenX fans and found their dBA ratings are just hype and bogus....the fans actually created a sound rating of 34dBA or worse....and their air output was bested by comparable fans such as the S-Flex SFF fan lineup....not the monster 110cfm fan that is included in the overly loud ratings, but maybe the SFF21F fan that produces 70cfm at an honest 31dBA. Or use the next level down...the SFF21E...producing 51cfm at an honest 23dBA.
But, then again, when you rate the loudness of your fans by taking sound readings from 1M away from the fan, take them on 3 axes (one on axis with the fan...two off-axis and therefore oblivious to the noise production), and then take the mean of the three readings, I'm sure I could get almost any fan out there to achieve around 14dBA.
Naturally, the sound production of SilenX fans does not address their overly small motors, either. User after user has commented on the fact that after extended use, the small motors of SilenX fans tend to heat up a LOT more than fan motors of more normal sizing. But....when you source your fans from Globe Fan as SilenX does, and Globe is not the best producer of quiet fans, what do you expect?
Second, why even post sound ratings of any of the heatsink/fan combos when they are all drowned out by the noisy power supply? To just show hs after hs sound ratings that are almost all at 47dBA....that's meaningless information. All we know is that the power supply is making that much noise. Nothing about how much each hs/fan combo is producing.
My suggestion is to test the hs/fan combo in question mounted on a mb separately from a power supply's contamination. You don't have to have a darned thing heating it up to make the fan run at full speed to see how loud the fan is at full tilt. Alternatively, there are methods of producing a heating device a heatsink can mount to to test cooling capacity and sound production at various levels of cooling....all without having the contamination of the pwoer supply's fan.
yyrkoon - Tuesday, May 1, 2007 - link
AM I missing something here, or was this review concerning a new heatsink, or a fan, that some other sites are 'waring' over ? I am really, really, getting bored with you whiners, that feel it nessisary, to spread your unhappyness all over the internet.In case it has not been made obvious to you, and the other whiners, that the AT staff view themselves as a real world application type reviewer, I DO NOT CARE how quiet the fan really is, so long as it is quieter than the rest of the components in the system( I know I am not alone here). I am sure, the specifications AT gave out, where copied directly from the box, or given to them by the manufactuer. Now, if you really feel it nessisary to know the true specifications, go read about the fan at some other site, that has nothing better to do, than whine about how quiet a fan really is.
Let me know if the above text is too complicated to understand, and I'll be happy to throw in a few 'goo goo's', and 'gaa gaa's', just for you.
xsilver - Tuesday, May 1, 2007 - link
maybe a good compromise can be made on this whole fan noise issue.maybe AT can test the HSF as a separate setup to the system(psu).
With the graph though they can have a line going through it for where the system noise should be; so you have the noctua/sflex etc. with lower bars but then a great big red line at 47/38.3 db saying "your psu noise is most likely here you knob!"
that should put all the naysayers to rest.
yyrkoon - Wednesday, May 2, 2007 - link
Maybe each individual AT reader could send the AT staff $100usd daily for their time ? Possible, but not likely.Seriously though, as an outsider looking in, I do not think it is in ATs best interrest to do so. Each seperate test takes time, and time is money . . .
stromgald - Monday, April 30, 2007 - link
As a member of the SPCR community, I haven't heard anything about the issue with small motors. Also, there are several very good Globe fans in terms of quiet computing. Check SPCR's recommended list. I believe there are one or two Globe fans on there.Most SPCR members will tell you that SilenX aren't the best, but they certainly aren't the worst. Misrepresentation of noise and airflow levels are rampant in the industry and has been demonstrated by several websites. It's nothing new or particularly bad that SilenX misreperesents their numbers. The rift between SilenX and SPCR does not come from their hardware, but a marketing ploy SilenX tried on SPCR forums.
Even as a silent PC enthusiast, I don't expect AT to do SPCR level testing. I just want consistent testing for all products, and testing that is close to real world applications as possible, with discrepancies from real-life application pointed out clearly.
The drown-out issue is important though. Even though most environments have a sound 'floor', I think AT should consider using a quieter PSU (Seasonic or Corsair) or passive graphics card when doing cooling tests. A reference 'everything off', quiet room reading of the sound meter would also be greatly appreciated in the noise readings, and wouldn't be hard to do.
strikeback03 - Tuesday, May 1, 2007 - link
5th paragraph on the Noise page of the review.
Wesley Fink - Monday, April 30, 2007 - link
It is clear SilenX and some SPCR readers had a war some time ago and feelings still run deep. We were not part of that war. We can only report what we found, which was the SilenX fan cooled well and improved performance at below system noise floor on the heatsinks we tested with it. Performance was improved over the stock cooler on some heatsinks and not on some others.As we have said repeatedly, there is a place for testing fans in isolation separated from a real world power supply. You will not find those kinds of fan tests at AT. We are revising our test bed to further lower noise, but noise measurements will still be with a balanced system capable of enthusiast level performance.
Those interested in silence only need to look at other sites that specialize in that approach.