Socket-A Cooler Roundup: September 2001

Installation and clip

The Kanie Wing can be installed as easily as a normal single-fan cooler. Its clip is good, it uses all six cleats on the socket. Although the Socket clip isn't as good for heavy heatsinks as the through-motherboard screw mounting, the clip has the advantage that it is also compatible with motherboards for Intel CPUs. Due to the strange form of the "Wing", we still recommend to carefully check motherboard and case compability before buying one.

Performance and noise, conclusion

The "Wing" sample we received comes with two 7000rpm Delta fans. We consider even one of these fans too loud, so two of them are almost unbearable. In this configuration, the "Wing" set a sad new record: loudest cooler we ever reviewed. However, the "Wing" performed well - with the two 7000rpm Delta fans, it was outperformed only by one cooler: The Alpha PAL8045 with an (also noisy, but a little more bearable) 68CFM Delta fan.

We recommend the Wing only for users who don't care about noise (everybody should, though!), and want the best possible cooling performance, but can't use the Alpha because of motherboard compability problems.

With slower-spinning fans, the "Wing" could also be used as a quiet cooler with still good performance; however, for a low noise cooler one large 80mm fan is usually better than two 60mm fans.