These coolers are not for avant-garde overclockers, nor were they designed with the overclocker in mind. I have read a few reviews on line where this product gets kicked in the proverbial nut sack for being crappy for overclocking, but why? It's not even made for that environment. The CM Sphere works much better that the stock Intel retail box heatsink, which works just fine for standard usage and also is not geared for overclocking. Under full load the copper version ran at just above 32C and the Jet black at 34C on the Intel and on the AMD system the copper ran at 38C and the Jet Black at 41C. The cooling fan is very silent and if noise is something you wish to avoid, the CM Sphere is something worthy of your consideration.
The copper version does work at about 2 degrees lower than the jet black unit, which is most likely due to the silver coating on the jet black versions heat sink, the copper unit is made of copper through and through. Some custom systems have a color scheme in their makeup and that is where the decision point as to which one you would want comes in as both works fairly the same from our tests beyond a few degrees of temp. The bottom line with the CM Sphere is this; for a mod builder, this is a very cool looking addition that works well enough that most users will find it more than adequate for their needs. It's got a lot of show, but it still has enough go to satisfy! This product is to me a very solid cooling solution for the custom or mod builder as both the copper and the jet black unit both add looks to any system and work well to.
Doc out
