We recall from last year a question that many pondered – just how far can air cooling go? Air cooling can only go so far and it won’t be long until we hit the limit. We’ve already seen some companies take to water cooling solutions with all-in-one kits – some more successful than others. It won’t be long until some of the bigger names start to find new ways to adapt air cooling for the masses and take it to a new level. There are already rumours of vapour chambers and TEC’s in the future. However, one such company that we are reviewing today has taken a step ahead of the big rivals and taken air cooling to a whole new level – liquid metal.

About

Many people will be unfamiliar with Danamics and wouldn’t have known they produce CPU coolers. Founded on the principle of providing manufacturers of electronic hot spots the very best in cooling, Danamics started in 2005. Since then, Danamics has worked on developing, manufacturing and commercializing their core technology, which centres around the principle of using liquid metal as a heat remover. Danamics were keen to improve on their earlier cooler; the LM10. Much hyped and talked about, it proved to be only average and couldn’t keep up with the very best standard air coolers, let alone justify such a high price tag! They redesigned the whole cooler from the ground up but have kept the same Sodium Potassium Alloy used for cooling.

Liquid Metal you say?

Sodium Potassium Alloy (aka NaK) is a top substance for heat transfer. However, reading through the nice detailed warning booklet, it is highly reactive to air and water. Something that puts many people off due to the fact that if the substance were to leak, well, watch out for an explosion! This NaK is pumped around the cooler’s nickel plated heatpipes via the electromagnetic pump which is silent and features no moving parts. This pump is a REV.2 (PowerBooster 2) over the previous LMX Pump, which Danamics has told me is smaller, cheaper and more effective. Note – this does get very hot so be careful! Moving parts are totally eliminated as the magnetic force is created within the particles of the liquid metal causing it to flow.

See the image below for the step-by-step of how this electromagnetic flow works:

Step-by-step

When you think of CPU cooling on air, many will say it’s not all that great. This is why we have forms of cooling better than air/passive, like water cooling, TEC, Phase, DICE, LN2 and so forth. However, choosing one of the latter can be rather expensive. So what you need is the best value for money that air cooling can give you.

Of course you can buy the ‘all in one’ water-cooling solutions from the likes of CoolIT & Corsair for a decent price of approx £50-60. The problem is that although they are good and effective, a top of the line CPU air cooler like some were reviewing today may beat them and defeats the object of going water-cooling. If you want to water cool your CPU, you’re better off doing it right and having a custom built setup instead. You can’t go cheap on water-cooling. A custom low cost water cooling loop is featured in the review.

The Heatsinks

Meet today’s contenders. The Mega Shadow from Prolimatech is considered by many on the enthusiast scene to be the best air cooler on the market. Coming in at approx £60, it’s quite expensive for an air CPU cooler. When you consider the fact you need to buy a decent fan for it, we’re talking £70.

Our two other coolers featured today include Thermalright’s successor to their previous king (the Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme, or TRUE); the Venomous X. Priced around £47, it could be something special. 47 aluminium fins, six heatpipes and a pressure mounting system. What more do you want?

Last, we have Noctua. We all know and love their quiet cooling solutions giving us the best airflow to noise ratio, but this time we see Noctua surprise us a little with one beasty looking cooler; the NH-D14. 6 heatpipes, dual radiator design, support for all current platforms right out of the box (no more buying that mounting kit you need, mainly AM3, that they don’t supply) 2 fans included – 1x 120mm and 1x 140mm. This baby comes in at a jaw dropping £70. However, given the price of the Mega Shadow which doesn’t include 2 fans, let alone 1, or even an AM2/AM3 kit included, Noctua priced it about right. Will the design work? Keep on reading.