Final Thoughts
Price
The NoFan CR-80EH is what I would class as a budget cooler, it comes in at just under £40 here in the UK and that means it’s not beyond the reach of most consumers looking for a reliable CPU cooler. It does however become very good value for money when you look at the product ranges of companies like be quiet! which are often more expensive and sure they’re quiet, but they’re not silent.
Overview
To be honest this isn’t that great a CPU cooler, it’s actually one of the worst performing ones I’ve ever tested, but it’s all about how you look at the numbers that matters to the CR-80EH. Compared to the other coolers we’ve tested, the CR-80EH is easily beaten by most any cooler that costs half as much. Of course most of those budget coolers are a heck of a lot noisier than the NoFan.
When it comes to creating a silent build, things can get a little expensive finding the best components to give you both good thermal performance and as minimal noise. The NoFan is budget friendly and completely silent, but also offers reliable performance for those who have no intention of overclocking. If you’re wanting to build a high end gaming rig, forget it, this isn’t the CPU cooler for you. If you’re planning on building a NAS box, workstation, recording studio rig, HTPC or anything else that you would rather be seen and not heard, then you’ll be very happy with the CR-80EH.
An added bonus of the CR-80EH is that it looks superb, the copper heat pipes really add some unique visuals to the inside of your system and it’s a refreshing visual departure from the rectangle block with a fan on it.
Pros
- Silent performance
- Stunning design
- Affordable
Cons
- Not suitable for overclocking
eTeknix says: “NoFan have done a great job on the CR-80EH, it may not be much use for high-end overclocking, but it was never designed to be. It was designed to be seen and not heard, given that it’s one of the best looking and quietest CPU coolers I’ve ever tested, I’d say NoFan has succeeded in style, making this an ideal choice for a HTPC or similar style system.”
Thank you QuietPC for providing us with this sample.
I bought this cooler 6 months ago. See my tale of woe here: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1794057
I found the mounting mechanism particularly poor. Since the base is copper and the screws and plates are not, the difference in thermal expansion and contraction caused the plates to come loose which bodes ill for long-term use. I also had temperature problems which were likely due to the thermal paste – it turned out I was using a very old tube and it had dried out somewhat, and the paste supplied with the CR-80 was very poor. I’ve been meaning to give the CR-80 another go for some time, but I’m really just happy with my CR-95.
I just bought one of these. I built a system around an AMD A8 6500 on a Gigabyte GA-F2A88X-D3H. I started with the stock cooler, but it’s noisy enough to be annoying. There’s actually plenty of room around the CPU.
I tried to fit it, but found that the supplied screws are not quite long enough. I can’t attach the nuts on the back. I’ve mailed Nofan about this. They responded that I needed to remove the existing cooler mounting and I replied that I did that. Awaiting a further response.
I have some Crucial memory with heatsinks and there is plenty of clearance for those. If I can find some longer screws then it should fit fine. I’ll still have the case and PSU fans, but those are pretty quiet.
I eventually managed to installing it by slightly bending the brackets. On idle it was running 10C over the CPU maximum, so I have reverted to the AMD cooler for now. They recommend a case with holes in the top, which my Cooler Master Silencio 550 does not have, but there is a rear fan near the cooler. I was testing with the side panels off anyway.
This cooler is fantastic. I removed the black top piece and zip tied a noctua 140mm fan to the top with the very low speed resistor which is dead silent and it cools like a beast.
It was able to handle my skylake 6700K without the fan but it ran a little hotter than I’d like.
With the fan it keeps icy cold. I know this sort of defeats the point of a fanless cooler, but it is totally inaudible to me, was relatively cost effective, and looks neat.