Acoustic Research AR-M2

The revamped AR brand is the latest aboard the digital music player bandwagon: is the AR-M2 a worthwhile addition to the choice available, or merely a latecomer?

The revitalised – or is that reinvented? – Acoustic Research brand is on a roll at the moment. We reviewed the AR-UA1 portable headphone amplifier/DAC with good but slightly mixed results, primarily due to some fits and starts with getting it working, and now we have its contender in the digital music player market, the new £900 AR-M2.

Gigantic

What’s the hot new game genre that people across the globe are crazy excited about? Why, MOBAs, of course! The sheer amount of people playing games like DotA2 and League of Legends is staggering – as is the money and stream views these titles bring in! Yes, MOBAs are a hot ticket in gaming these days… but so far, the market’s been completely dominated by the two games I just mentioned above.

Xilence M606

Our last entry in the group is a Xilence M606. It’s a fairly standard design, with the aluminium fins of the heatsink in a horizontal arrangement, with a 120mm Xilence 2CF silent fan mounted on one side. It measures 136 x 84 x 156mm and weighs a rather hefty 1.2kg.

There are six 6mm heatpipes that run from the copper nickel-plated CPU contact plate and up through the fins of the heatsink. Sadly, there’s no magical heat dispersion technology in use here, just the standard large surface area to get rid of the heat from the CPU.

Cryorig H5 Universal

We haven't used a Cryorig air cooler before, so we were looking forward to putting the H5 Universal through its paces.

It features the usual rectangular heatsink design, but Cryorig has added something a little different to the mix, in that the H-Series of coolers incorporates a Hive Fin design structure. This means that rather than the standard horizontal fins of the heatsink as we normally see, the H5 has a honeycomb effect through its 38 aluminium fins. This is supposed to exhaust hot air faster and more efficiently than conventional methods.

Cooler Master Hyper 612 V2

We can’t have a CPU cooler group without at least one entry from Cooler Master, and in this case it’s the Hyper 612 V2. This is obviously a remake of the original 612 cooler, which sadly we can’t comment on or compare it to, because we’ve never used it.

Regardless, the Cooler Master Hyper 612 V2 is a large, rectangular aluminium fin heatsink block, with a single 120mm fan attached to one side. It measures 139 x 102 x 160mm and weighs a reasonable 880g.

Noctua NH-U14S Slim U-Series

Noctua is a highly regarded company that produces some very hig-quality products, and it has quite a catalogue of items to its name. This is one of its single-fan tower CPU coolers, and it comes with Noctua's trademark beige-and-brown, Bakerlite-looking fan and fan casing mounted onto a polished aluminium heatsink.

Zalman CNPS9900-DF Dual Fan Ultra Quiet CPU Cooler

Rather than the standard rectangular look of most CPU air coolers, the Zalman CNPS9900-DF Dual Fan Quiet CPU Cooler (CNPS stands for Computer Noise Prevention System, by the way) is an aesthetically pleasing circular shape instead.

Be Quiet Dark Rock Pro 3

This is certainly an impressive looking cooler, with an ominous black metal look throughout. And this reasonably large heatsink and fan set has pretty much everything you could ask for. The heatsink measures 150 x 137 x 163mm, weighs 1.1kg and is comprised of 90 aluminium fins mounted on a copper, machined CPU contact surface. Seven 6mm heatpipes lead from each side of the CPU contact, up through the split aluminium fins.