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Thread: XIGMATEK Dark Knight II SD1283 Night Hawk Edition CPU Cooler

  1. #1
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    Default XIGMATEK Dark Knight II SD1283 Night Hawk Edition CPU Cooler

    Manufacturer: XigmaTek
    Product: Dark Knight II SD1283 Night Hawk Edition CPU Cooler
    Price: $43.99 on Newegg

    Some specs:

    Socket Compatibility: Intel Socket: LGA 2011 / 1366 / 1156 / 1155 / 775/ LGA1150 Haswell Compatible, AMD Socket: FM2 / FM1 / AM3 / AM2+ / AM2
    Material: Aluminum alloy with ceramic coating
    Assembled Size: 120 MM wide, 50 MM deep, 159 MM high
    Fan Size:120 MM
    Fan Speed: 1000 - 2200 RPM advertised
    Air Flow: 89.5 CFM @ 2200 RPM advertised
    Noise Level: 30.1 dBA advertised


    My "desktop" computer is actually in a 4U rack mounted chassis, and the case is pretty full. One of the problems I have had since I built it was cooling. Things are pretty tight in there, this is a fairly high end machine that uses lots of power, and it runs 24/7. Using the standard AMD CPU cooler I would regularly run CPU temps in the 53-55 degrees Celsius range and motherboard temps in the 40s. When gaming or doing other CPU intensive stuff (hard core MySQL queries for example) I could easily push past 60 degrees Celsius. It gets HOT inside this case. There have been a few times I have actually had it throttle down on me because of heat, such as when the intake screen started to get a bit clogged.

    Some specs on hardware:

    CPU: AMD 8150 8 Core @ 3.60 GHz
    RAM: 16 gigs dual channel
    Video Cards: 1 x NVidia GTX 260 and 1 x NVidia 8400 GS running 4 monitors
    Hard drives: 180 gig SSD boot drive, 1 TB storage drive

    I have looked at other aftermarket coolers before, but finding one that will fit the tight inside of this case has been a problem. Most of them are made for ATX cases not rack mounted ones, and there is a bit more room to work with in those. I ran across this one a few months ago and since it was less than 160 MM tall but still supported 120 MM fans I bought it. I finally installed it last night. Its tight, but it fits. Removing the motherboard is a PITA, which is why I put it off for so long, but once its out its easy to remove the factory baseplate and install the one for this fan.

    Installing the fan in pusher mode (front of the case towards the back) is extremely tight when you have all 4 RAM slots populated. You actually have to remove 1 or 2 sticks and reinstall them after the fan is attached. It actually looks like the fan is touching the stick of RAM closest to it, but its not. I can slide a piece of paper between them freely, and because of how the fan mounts the RAM is not blocking airflow. The top of the RAM is at the very bottom of the fan, the edge of the fan case is right there but nothing sticks up over the actual blades. And the good news with this setup is that you can also add a puller fan to the backside of the cooler if you want. I did not do that (yet) as I wanted to get some baseline performance numbers on the factory package.

    So far I am pretty impressed. Temps under little load are great. As I sit here typing this I am running 31 C CPU and 24 C motherboard. Previously I would run about 38 CPU and 28 motherboard. Now the motherboard is right at about room temperature, I suspect this is because the airflow from the CPU cooler is now going directly to the back of the box and out. With the stock AMD fan the airflow is down towards the bottom of the case then out the sides of the stock AMD heat sink, which causes a bit of turbulence inside the case. There is one 120 MM intake fan in the front that runs at 3000 RPM (more than the fan on this sink btw) and 2 80 MM standard fans in the back of the case for exhaust. There are no more slots in the case for fans, and with the stock AMD cooler blowing down instead of back I think airflow through the case was a bit restricted as it was fighting the front 120 MM fan. Now it all flows in the same direction which resulted in a motherboard temp drop of several degrees Celsius under no load.

    Under load its even better. Running a fairly complicated Minecraft world (Tekkit mod) with lots of permanently loaded chunks and moving parts resulted in temps of 39 CPU and 24 motherboard. The motherboard temp never moved at all, CPU was running all 8 cores at around 20% and using 5.3 gigs of RAM. That's a net drop of 20 degrees Celsius on the CPU and 16 degrees Celsius on the motherboard. No other changes to the system were made other than swapping out the stock AMD cooler for this one.

    Click image for larger version. 

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    The lid for the case does fit, but there is probably less than 1 MM clearance between the top of the cooler and the lid. That is a bit less than I would like but considering my setup I cant complain about it much. In the near future I may swap out the fan that came with the cooler for one that moves 100 CFM+ and stick in a puller fan as well (attachments for that come with the cooler) but for now I am more than satisfied. This thing has done all I expected of it and more. The original goal was to get CPU temps below 50 Celsius, and I am now running below 40.

  2. #2

    Default Re: XIGMATEK Dark Knight II SD1283 Night Hawk Edition CPU Cooler

    Not bad, but I would have liked to have seen a benchmark that is universally recognized, like an hour long Prime95 test.
    Signature by Lucarius.

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