ID-Cooling SE-207-XT Black

[crazyeyesreaper]

ID-Cooling offers some truly compelling coolers, and with the release of the SE-207-XT, they are targeting the high-end air-cooling market after dominating the entry-level segment. Featuring a dual-tower, dual-fan design, this all-black cooler should intrigue those looking to avoid ARGB lighting while maximizing performance per dollar.

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[GoldenX]

There's something going on with the SE-224-XT and Ryzen CPUs, it's too cheap and beats many "better" offers. Could be the specific placement of the direct contact heatpipes?

ID-Cooling has excellent pricing here in Argentina, an inflation riddled place. Their products are usually half the price of the competition, sometimes even reaching a third. They are really great products for the price.

 

[Vader]

ID-Cooling has excellent pricing here in Argentina, an inflation riddled place. Their products are usually half the price of the competition, sometimes even reaching a third. They are really great products for the price.

They do. I have one 140mm and three 120mm fans. My case is cool and happy. Best ratio of price to performance for what's available here.

 

[GoldenX]

Yeah, I got 4 120mm PWM fans from them, 3 are now at the front of the case and the fourth as an extra for the 224-XT, nothing to complain. Cheapest PWM fans on sale, not counting generic fixed colour led ones.

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

There's something going on with the SE-224-XT and Ryzen CPUs, it's too cheap and beats many "better" offers. Could be the specific placement of the direct contact heatpipes?

ID-Cooling has excellent pricing here in Argentina, an inflation riddled place. Their products are usually half the price of the competition, sometimes even reaching a third. They are really great products for the price.

When ID-Cooling launched the SE-224-XT they were especially proud of the performance and wanted me to review those coolers ASAP. Likely it was a magic moment where everything worked out in their favor. I have the SE-224-XT here I may revisit it but my guess is mounting pressure. As noted in the review the SE-207-XT on AMD left a much thicker pad of thermal paste compared to the company's and their competitors offerings. Changing out mounting hardware made no difference. It was by no means as bad as the Corsair A500 but it goes to show that the tolerances matter and can influence final performance a great deal.

 

[maxfly]

Thats a shame, i was expecting far better results. Im a big fan of the 224 and 225 xt heatsinks. Ive had great results using the 224 as my new value hs.

 

[rlifeh]

I'm disappointed, though i'll see much better results
about 2 years ago, I bought last SE-207 from offical seller on aliexpress, it was very cheap with free shipping (42.7$)
sure, non black version

 

[Mussels]

Really glad to see AMD and intel being tested seperately, its a PITA when you want to buy a cooler as an AM4 user, and it was only ever tested on intel which is easier to cool

 

[Space Lynx]

@crazyeyesreaper will you ever test the Arctic 360mm or 420mm AIO's? they have been considered to be the king for quite some time now over at gamersnexus and other sites. Just curious what your testing would show

 

[Athlonite]

Can we possibly knock that Cryorig C7 cu off the list and replace it with the Cryorig R1 Universal instead you know so it's just a little bit fairer on Cryorig vs other large tower coolers instead of a Cryorig low profile low power HSF

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

Can we possibly knock that Cryorig C7 cu off the list and replace it with the Cryorig R1 Universal instead you know so it's just a little bit fairer on Cryorig vs other large tower coolers instead of a Cryorig low profile low power HSF

My R1 is gone, used it in a friends system (long story short cat thought knocking fan off table was fun so changed fans and used it in his build). And while I do a have a soft spot for the R1 universal the fact is you cant really buy them. I mean yeah you can get a refurbish through outlet PC or you can pay absurd third party prices. Sadly CRYORIG has fallen a long way since Trump took office, increased tariffs and nearly killed the company, instead they work through Outlet PC now but its still spotty at least Stateside. Sadly i held onto that cooler for about 6 years. The original review was in 2014. On top of that even if you can find one from what I remember they don't support AM4 on most of them requiring contacting support "good luck" or buying an AM4 kit for it $10-15.

As for the C7 Cu i kept some mini-ITX coolers in the mic because the stock test results should be a good indicator for performance on less power hungry chips in ITX systems. While ITX coolers may not be as popular I do try to make sure I have coolers from every market / price segment if possible.

 

[watzupken]

I feel the poor cooling on the AMD Ryzen chip just shows that it is not easy to cool a CPU with a chiplet design. The surface area is too small, and especially for direct heatpipe coolers, the contact is likely going to be limited to just 1 or 2 heatpipes in contact with each chiplet. I've used a Ryzen 7 5800X, and right out of the box, the CPU runs too hot and very difficult to cool even with a 360mm Arctic Liquid Freezer II. It is until I messed around with PBO and lowered the power limit when I saw temps drop drastically from a throttling 90+ degs running Cinebench R20, to max of 78 degs sustained.

 

[Mussels]

I feel the poor cooling on the AMD Ryzen chip just shows that it is not easy to cool a CPU with a chiplet design. The surface area is too small, and especially for direct heatpipe coolers, the contact is likely going to be limited to just 1 or 2 heatpipes in contact with each chiplet. I've used a Ryzen 7 5800X, and right out of the box, the CPU runs too hot and very difficult to cool even with a 360mm Arctic Liquid Freezer II. It is until I messed around with PBO and lowered the power limit when I saw temps drop drastically from a throttling 90+ degs running Cinebench R20, to max of 78 degs sustained.

Yeah, my sig has a bunch of stuff about the PBO limits
I think AMD has learned from the 5800x, and wont push single chiplets so high next time around - the 5600x does it right, as does a PBO limited 5800x

5800x cares about good thermal paste, and a cooler with good contact over the die. one day i'll lap mine and see if it helps.

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

I feel the poor cooling on the AMD Ryzen chip just shows that it is not easy to cool a CPU with a chiplet design. The surface area is too small, and especially for direct heatpipe coolers, the contact is likely going to be limited to just 1 or 2 heatpipes in contact with each chiplet. I've used a Ryzen 7 5800X, and right out of the box, the CPU runs too hot and very difficult to cool even with a 360mm Arctic Liquid Freezer II. It is until I messed around with PBO and lowered the power limit when I saw temps drop drastically from a throttling 90+ degs running Cinebench R20, to max of 78 degs sustained.

Yeah, my sig has a bunch of stuff about the PBO limits
I think AMD has learned from the 5800x, and wont push single chiplets so high next time around - the 5600x does it right, as does a PBO limited 5800x

5800x cares about good thermal paste, and a cooler with good contact over the die. one day i'll lap mine and see if it helps.

its a legit pressure issue, not a problem with the chiplet design, its a dual tower dual fan design that only beats out ID-Coolings very affordable SE 224 XT single tower single 120 mm fan in certain situations. The SE 224 XT has better pressure, the 207 XT when removed there were no bare spots to speak off, just a rather thick coating of paste. Every other cooler I have tested there are always small bare spots. The SE 207 XT on Intel exhibited this same behavior (small spots where it was metal on metal) AMD side it looked like the paste spread was similar to a cooler where they pre-applied the paste for you. That means a lack of pressure and tolerances were off at least on the AMD side. Could have been a one off but I review what I get forwarded my results to the company and moved on.

 

[Athlonite]

My R1 is gone, used it in a friends system (long story short cat thought knocking fan off table was fun so changed fans and used it in his build). And while I do a have a soft spot for the R1 universal the fact is you cant really buy them. I mean yeah you can get a refurbish through outlet PC or you can pay absurd third party prices. Sadly CRYORIG has fallen a long way since Trump took office, increased tariffs and nearly killed the company, instead they work through Outlet PC now but its still spotty at least Stateside. Sadly i held onto that cooler for about 6 years. The original review was in 2014. On top of that even if you can find one from what I remember they don't support AM4 on most of them requiring contacting support "good luck" or buying an AM4 kit for it $10-15.

As for the C7 Cu i kept some mini-ITX coolers in the mic because the stock test results should be a good indicator for performance on less power hungry chips in ITX systems. While ITX coolers may not be as popular I do try to make sure I have coolers from every market / price segment if possible.

When I bought mine it came with the AM4 brackets and yeah I get that it's not really available in the US but it is still a seller in other countries though that don't have that China tax and I didn't realise that the R1 had been around for that long I only bought mine in 2019 when I finally went from AM3+ to AM4 and only because the Thermolab Barram didn't have AM4 support (well I could have made brackets but I'm a lazy c@#t)

 

[jayjr1105]

There's something going on with the SE-224-XT and Ryzen CPUs, it's too cheap and beats many "better" offers. Could be the specific placement of the direct contact heatpipes?

ID-Cooling has excellent pricing here in Argentina, an inflation riddled place. Their products are usually half the price of the competition, sometimes even reaching a third. They are really great products for the price.

It has one of the highest quality machine surfacing I've ever seen for a $25 cooler. Many speculate this is why. I purchased the 5 heatpipe version (SE-225-XT) for my 5600X and it didn't have nearly as good as a mating surface of the 224. Still it's doing quite well and looks so good with the push pull fans. They can sound a bit "jet engine" like but I just have them max out at 90% PWM under 70C load with my 5600X which almost never happens unless a game like Far Cry 5 is really hammering my CPU.

It's crazy how different reviewers always have different results for the same coolers. TweakTown gave this 225 a 98% and it compared with Noctua's best. However they only test it with a 3600X.

 

[GoldenX]

It has one of the highest quality machine surfacing I've ever seen for a $25 cooler. Many speculate this is why. I purchased the 5 heatpipe version (SE-225-XT) for my 5600X and it didn't have nearly as good as a mating surface of the 224. Still it's doing quite well and looks so good with the push pull fans. They can sound a bit "jet engine" like but I just have them max out at 90% PWM under 70C load with my 5600X which almost never happens unless a game like Far Cry 5 is really hammering my CPU.

It's crazy how different reviewers always have different results for the same coolers. TweakTown gave this 225 a 98% and it compared with Noctua's best. However they only test it with a 3600X.

View attachment 214662

The 225 seems to perform better on Intel and older Zens. Could be by design?