Nofan CR-80EH

Ice Tea

Nofan CR-80EH passive cooler

Anyone running one as the reviews are very mixed?

EndlessWaves

As soon as you take away even an inaudible fan you lose a lot of cooling capability. I'd never buy anything that's passively cooled beyond a few watts as a practical proposition.

As an enthusiast's purchase it's quite fun though. How well it works is highly dependant on what it's cooling and the layout of the case. Do be conservative in your estimates on what'll work.

Ice Tea

I'm already have a Thermalright HR-02 but i like the idea of the Nofan being 1/3rd of the weight.

Trollslayer

I think you would need very good airflow for it to stand a chance.

Anderz

I think the question is more how different would the perfomance be between the Nofan and the Thermalright HR-02 which is currently setting the standards. It's like the difference between low budget and expensive fans. What it comes down to is how much you really want to experiment and play around with it. As long as you got one or the other you should be safe as far as cooling temps goes.

I still do have the flagship Thermalright 120 ultra extreme and years later the smaller but still as effective Ultima 90I. The perfomance of the 2 was amazing back around 2007 and the top 3rd party cooler to boot. Still what do you have 10 years or so later?

As long as it can work with your current chipset of choice and cpu max tdp for load you can still use the Thermalright HR-02 and save your time, money and effort.

Ice Tea

Some CPU Coolers Are Bending Intel Skylake CPUs - Legit Reviews

This is about socket weight rather than best performance , example above.

Anderz

Yes weight I forgot but the Ultra 120 extreme is big and weight of that one is 1,7 pounds aka 0,771 kilo. I Google a Nofan to 300 grams.

I got the bracket directly from Thermalright and installed the Ultra 120 extreme on my 2016 1151 Skylake build. The motherboard did not last due to someting electronic happening over a cause of time. The Ultra still performed well and no breakage where visible from the heatsink when I took it of for sending the board to RMA.

The HR-02 is given to 860 gram so a bit more heavy than an Ultra extreme. In that case if the chipset is not damaged by it you will most likely still be able to use it for the life span of your current motherboard with no problems in that area.

I only had one 120 mm fan on the Ultra but could double to push - pull and getting near the same weight as the hr-02. Stil it would not have any problems on my motherboard.

Ice Tea

The Max weight for Intel sockets is 500 grams and most coolers seem to be above that.

EndlessWaves

I don't think Intel have specified a weight for LGA1151, and recent previous sockets were specified as a force as the height and weight distribution of the cooler also makes a huge difference to bending.

Most coolers are below that and it's primarily the big tower coolers for the enthusiast market that go beyond those recommended forces.

On the other hand, many enthusiast motherboards are also thicker to cope with the force.


If you do move the PC about occasionally and are worried about the forces from the cooler than the CR-80EH looks like a decent compromise if you want to stick with passive. You haven't told us how much heat it's dealing with, but I'd expect it to do an acceptable job on a higher end 50-60W CPU, and it'll definitely handle a mainstream model.

Ice Tea

Without wishing to sound rude i already have a Thermalright HR-02 running passive for years so it's not advice that i need in that regards. I just wondered if anyone owned a Nofan CR-80EH to give their thoughts on the cooler itself but somehow it has become crossed wired as if i was asking for advice on passive cooling.

Thanks anyway.