As brands go, Prolimatech is a new one. The company has only been around since 2008, after all, and it offers a bare handful of products. But the company was founded by people who clearly know a lot about CPU cooling, as it’s accrued considerable cred in just a couple of years. Its best-known cooler, the Megahalems, was designed for overclocked 1366 chips. We told Prolimatech about our new Socket 1156 cooling test bed, and the company sent over a newer cooler, ominously named Armageddon.
The Armageddon doesn't come cheap, and the Vortex 14cm fans cost an extra $14 each, but the performance speaks for itself.
At 5.6 inches wide by 2 inches thick by 6.3 inches tall, the Armageddon is wider but slimmer than our champion air cooler, the CM Hyper 212+. While the Hyper has four direct-contact copper heat pipes, the Armageddon’s six heat pipes run through a more standard heat exchanger and up through a stack of heat-dissipation fins. The Armageddon’s mounting system is a bit complex—requiring a backplate, three retention bars, four bolts, four o-rings, four double-headed thumbscrews, four nuts, and two spring screws. But the end result is a stable, solid install with no give and no potential pressure- or torque-related failure points.
The Armageddon supports up to two fans, either 12cm or 14cm, but preferably the latter. In an unusual move, the cooler doesn’t ship with any fans, though Prolimatech shipped us two of its 14cm, 1,000rpm Vortex fans. It’s not that the Armageddon is intended to be fanless—Prolimatech gives you the freedom to add whichever fans you want, preferably its own. We used both Vortex fans to test the Armageddon in push/pull configuration. In the interest of fairness, we added another fan to the Cooler Master 212+, too—we had a spare 212+ around, so we borrowed one of its CM fans.
With two 14cm fans in push/pull configuration, the Armageddon trounced the Hyper by 6.5 C—oddly, using two of the Hyper’s stock fans instead of one barely helped the Cooler Master heatsink at all. In mounting-bracket security, looks, and two-fan performance, the Armageddon surpasses our champion. But the Prolimatech cooler costs $65 without fans. Add $28 for the two fans we tested it with, and you’re looking at more than $90 for a CPU cooler. Value-for-dollar, you still can’t beat the Cooler Master 212+. But the Armageddon is a powerful and worthy cooler with a satisfyingly solid mounting mechanism, quiet fans (sold separately), and a lot of oomph.
Powerful and quiet cooling in push/pull with recommended fans; fantastic fan clips; solid mounting bracket.
Pricey; fans solid separately.
| Prolimatech Armageddon (two fans) | Cooler Master Hyper 212+ (two fans) | Cooler Master Hyper 212+ (one fan) | Stock Cooler | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Idle (C) | 33.5 | 32.25 | 36 | 46.75 |
| 100% Burn (C) | 53.25 | 59.75 | 60 | 88.5 |
Fruguy
November 16, 2010 at 12:56pm
I read that you tested both of the coolers with two fans, but also included the numbers of the CM Hyper 212+ running just one fan. In the interest of fairness, you should have tested the Armageddon cooler with just one fan so we would have a fair comparison to the CM Hyper 212+ with just one fan.
kiaghi7
November 16, 2010 at 3:45pm
In addition, the stats on the specific fans used for each test are quite important, low CFM fans on one or the other shows a clear advantage in efficiency even with lower Cubic Feet Per Minute being moved across the fins.
I still highly doubt either one of them is remotely as capable as the Megahalems Rev.B or the Spire Thermax Eclipse II which are still the king of the hill currently, each sporting a single fan... In push-pull they can trounce most alternatives, and if you splurge and cobble together a quadruple fan rig (mount two fans properly, and spring-clip two more to the first pair) you can squeeze out another few degrees in some cases...
But I digress...
Anyway, when it comes to these things, specifics are very important, you can't honestly compare two heatsinks if the fans that cool them are effectively omitted. Specifications for air-flow and arguably generated air-pressure are significant (big fans have low pressure but higher CFM so it can be deceiving)
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