Our last entry in the group is a Xilence M606. It’s a fairly standard design, with the aluminium fins of the heatsink in a horizontal arrangement, with a 120mm Xilence 2CF silent fan mounted on one side. It measures 136 x 84 x 156mm and weighs a rather hefty 1.2kg.
There are six 6mm heatpipes that run from the copper nickel-plated CPU contact plate and up through the fins of the heatsink. Sadly, there’s no magical heat dispersion technology in use here, just the standard large surface area to get rid of the heat from the CPU.
The cooler is reasonably slim and able to fit on top of the CPU without too much interference with the surrounding components, although those with very large memory heatsinks on the RAM sticks and motherboards with large VRM heatsinks may need to check beforehand.
Fitting it was easy. There are mounting brackets and other fittings for both Intel and AMD sockets and a tube of thermal paste thrown into the box for added measure. It’s a fairly straightforward and nondescript setup and one that only took about 15 minutes – there were a few tricky screws in place for our sausage-like fingers.
In testing, on our overclocked 4.4GHz i7-4790K the idle temperature was measured at 38ºC, making it one of the highest so far at idle. The load test didn’t prove much better at 75ºC, being only four and A half degrees cooler than the hottest we’ve had the processor running at.
Noise levels, meanwhile, were quick shocking. We’re not sure if it was a problem with the fan we had or just something with the M606 itself, but we measured a rather loud 55dbA at one metre from the cooler. It may not appear a lot of difference on paper, between the 48dbA of the Noctua entry and this cooler, but it makes for a noticeably louder setup – especially if you’re building a system where you want to limit the amount of noise produced.
Although it wasn’t the hottest cooler we’ve had running, it wasn’t particularly good at either the idle or load tests. And the noise levels produced will more than likely turn users away in favour of the far quieter models we’ve already looked at. The Xilence M606 about a pound cheaper than the Cryorig entry, but you’re better off spending the extra pound for a far superior cooling solution.
There’s not much left to add about the Xilence M606. It’s a pretty bog standard cooling solution, sadly with not a huge amount going for it. As we’ve seen, there are better options available, even if you require the extra room to fit a more elaborate memory kit with larger than normal heatsinks attached.
Intel LGA1366/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA775
AMD FM1/AM3+/AM3/AM2+/AM2