ID-Cooling IS-60 EVO ARGB Low-Profile CPU Cooler Review

A Closer Look

Out of the box, you are struck with two initial thoughts surrounding the ID-Cooling IS-60 EVO ARGB. Firstly, that it’d rather small. Albeit, given that this is a low-profile cooler, maybe you (we?) should’ve anticipated that one better. Secondly, however, despite its small stature, it feels surprisingly weighty in the hand and the more attention you pay to it, the more you become to understand why that is.

Contact Plate

Skipping over a major point that is visible in the images below, which we’ll get onto later, there are 6 nickel coated pipes leading away from the contact plate which should, all going well, get that heat quickly and efficiently to the radiator.

The contact plate is nice and large with an incredibly smooth surface. As such, whatever head generated by your processor should quickly be transferred (with the help of some thermal compound). Additionally, based on the size this should be more than suitable for either Intel or AMD processors with the only exception being workstation CPUs such as the ‘Threadripper’.

Radiator

With the radiator being sandwiched between two fans, again more on that shortly, it is a little difficult to get a clear view of it and specifically what has gone into the design. Well, not without taking this all apart and, at the risk of it not going back together anywhere near as well, we didn’t want to risk that. With it being around 10cm tall and 3cm wide, however, hopefully this will be enough real estate for the CPU temperature to dissipate.

As you can see in the image below, the radiator is generally split into two separate size sections that do seem to complicate the fan layout well.

Fan

So, finally getting onto one of the most interesting aspects of this CPU cooler design, the ID-Cooling IS-60 EVO ARGB, despite being a low-profile cooler, has still managed to find a way to incorporate two separate fans into the design. I must admit that seeing this has me more than a little curious as to how well they will work together and, more importantly, how well they will keep the CPU cool and what kind of trade-off (if any) will be found in the acoustic performance.

The fans themselves comprise of one standard 120mm main one to the top (featuring the ARGB lighting) with a smaller 92mm one sandwiched between the radiator. Although the smaller one does not incorporate any ARGB lighting, given its location, it would’ve probably have been wasted if it did.

Overall

Unlike many alternative low-profile coolers, the ID-Cooling IS-60 EVO ARGB actually carries an aesthetic, even with the ARGB light show off, that actually looks very visually appealing. The black, silver, and nickel plating really compliment each other well and, overall, despite it’s small size, it actually looks like a very potent creature.

How it looks, however, is only one aspect of this review. It is at least equally important for us not only to install this to our test bench (and relay to you how that went), but also to tell you how it performed when we fired up our system. So, first things first. Let’s get this slim little puppy strapped down!