Non-serviceable CPU water coolers allow their buyers to kill two birds with one stone: use their favorite "chip" in a non-standard mode and expel the heated air from the PC as quickly as possible. And if you're lucky, the cooler will also operate quietly.

I wonder what to expect from a water cooler named "Typhoon"? Super-efficient heat dissipation, terrible noise, or a combination of both? Or maybe deadly consequences for the "hardware"? We hope you're as curious to find the answer as we are. So, in the current review, we'll talk about the senior, more productive AIO from a brand already well-known to our readers – Vinga Typhoon.

Specification

Packaging and Contents

The new product comes in a large plain cardboard box, which immediately offers an overview of its main technical specifications.

Inside the box, all components of the Vinga Typhoon are packed in polyethylene bags and neatly arranged in their places. Including:

• mounting and reinforcement plate for installing the liquid cooling system;
• screws for mounting fans;
• screws for installing the radiator in the case;
• a set of nuts and washers;
• thermal paste in a syringe;
• a cable for connecting both fans to a single 4-pin connector;
• installation guide.

The presence of such useful components as a Y-shaped cable and thermal paste in a reusable package was pleasing.

Appearance and Design

The maintenance-free Vinga Typhoon liquid cooling system is ready to use right out of the box. No need to add or adjust anything – just install and use. The design includes a compact water block with an internal pump, a large aluminum radiator, and flexible hoses connecting everything. Thus, we get a cooler with a total weight of 1095 g.

Externally, the water block is completely similar to that in the younger solution Vinga Sea, although the dimensions are slightly different: 78 x 72 x 41 mm. The small rounded box easily allows the use of memory sticks with large radiators – another undeniable advantage of liquid cooling over bulky air coolers. The glossy insert bears the manufacturer's logo, equipped with soft blue backlighting. The only "but" – it should have been placed with a 90° rotation, as in the current form, the inscription will lie on its side when mounted.

On the reverse side, there is a large copper base (60 x 50 mm) with noticeable grinding marks. It is protected from damage by a factory film.

The pump operates at a speed of 2200 RPM, and a nominal voltage of 12 V (power consumption of 3 W) is supplied to it via a 34-centimeter 3-pin cable.

The movable angled tube attachment to the water block allows these elements to be placed as conveniently as possible, ensuring that the plastic hoses are not pinched. Their length is 32.8 cm – in most cases, this should be sufficient even when placing the radiator on the front panel.

The latter has rather large dimensions: 272 x 118 x 27 mm. Coolant circulates through 14 horizontal tubes, and between them are accordion-shaped fins designed to significantly increase the heat dissipation area. The thickness of these partitions is 0.35 mm, and the distance between them averages 1.2 mm. As a result, the density reaches a considerable 18 fins per inch.

To give the radiator a cohesive look and to prevent oxidation, it is coated with black paint, allowing it to blend seamlessly with most modern cases.

The mounting holes of the Vinga Typhoon are designed to accommodate a pair of 120 mm fans using long included screws.

Active cooling is provided by a pair of fans without any distinguishing markings, except for the cooler manufacturer's indication. Their nominal rotation speed is 1600 RPM, and the 4-pin connector provides PWM speed control. The wires are 44 cm long and are encased in nylon braid. For synchronous operation of both fans, you can use the included Y-shaped cable, allowing them to be connected to a single connector on the motherboard.
According to the official website, the fans are based on reliable hydrodynamic bearings with a mean time to failure of 50,000 hours.

The use of transparent blades clearly indicates the presence of LED lighting in the fan. You can appreciate the beauty of this spectacle a little further down, and here we note another pleasant detail – soft polypropylene pads in the corners of the fans. Say "no" to vibrations!

And how can we not mention the special shape of the blades, namely the presence of protrusions over their entire area and cuts along the lower edge of each. Such optimization is likely to positively affect cooling efficiency and acoustic comfort.

The assembled design has a relatively small thickness of 52 mm – a kind of slim variant, in the spirit of modern gadgets. 

Installation Process

Let's immediately note that the new product is suitable for systems based on AMD and Intel processors with the following sockets: Socket AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / AM3+ / AM4 / FM1 / FM2 / FM2+ and Socket LGA1156 / LGA1155 / LGA1150 / LGA1151 / LGA1366 / LGA2011 / LGA2011-v3 / LGA2066. Among current platforms, only AMD Socket TR4 is left out. And the ever-young Intel Socket LGA775 will also have to be cooled in some other way.

The installation of the Vinga Typhoon cooling system is detailed in the included user manual. Below, we will share our own experience of performing this procedure on mainstream platforms. Let's start, perhaps, with AMD.

First, prepare the water block mounting. To do this, extract the contents of the package for the desired platform and attach the metal brackets to the pump body with four included screws.

The second stage is the installation of the reinforcement plate. Preparation involves installing screws and washers in the appropriate holes, and it should be positioned with the "AMD" inscription towards the motherboard, after removing the standard mounting.

After installing the received structure on the motherboard, we thread the standoffs onto the screws.

If the processor with the applied thermal interface is already in place, it's time to install the water block and evenly tighten the screws. Before doing this, don't forget to remove the film from the base of the cooler, as it has already served its purpose.

The remaining actions can be performed in a relatively arbitrary sequence. For example, we attached a pair of propellers to the radiator...

...and only after that did we mount the entire resulting structure in the case.

After connecting the fans and pump to the motherboard, it's time to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Beautiful, isn't it? An air cooler is unlikely to look as impressive.

In the case of platforms based on Intel processors, a similar algorithm is used. The difference lies only in installing different water block mounts and mounting the reinforcement plate on the opposite side of the board.
However, the satisfaction from the appearance is the same. Moreover, the simplicity of assembly is pleasing - it requires no experience, just a screwdriver with a cross-shaped tip. During the installation, no difficulties arose - everything went perfectly. Therefore, if you have never held an AIO cooler in your hands before, this solution is a good candidate for gaining your first skills.

Testing

The following equipment was used to test the water cooling system:

The efficiency of Vinga Typhoon in cooling test processors can be compared to very large tower solutions, but the novelty lags behind top air coolers and a number of previously tested AIO coolers. The reason lies in the slower operation of the propellers at a speed of 1600 rpm compared to over 2000 rpm in other water coolers.

Reducing the blade rotation speed to 1200 rpm increases the lag by another 2-3°C, but this mode still allows effective cooling of overclocked high-performance processors of previous generations. This means that more energy-efficient modern models will also be within the new product's capabilities, even at reduced rotation speeds.

Remember that the full load mode (Full load) implies maximum utilization of all processor cores. Therefore, in real conditions where the load is variable (for example, in games), you can safely expect lower temperature readings.

Testing Vinga Typhoon on a 300-W heating stand shows a dependence close to linear. Thus, using fans even at low frequencies will allow effective heat dissipation from processors.

The pump, operating at a frequency of 2300 RPM, turned out to be almost silent, so the overall background in most cases will depend on the propellers. In the mentioned moderate mode (1200 RPM), the novelty operates almost silently, and when increasing the frequency to almost nominal value (1540 RPM), acoustic comfort is not disturbed. This allows us to call this water cooler one of the quietest among those we have tested.
For the sake of experiment, instead of the bundled fans, we tried to install faster solutions, which allowed us to achieve efficiency on par with competitors. However, in practice, such a replacement will be expensive, so we recommend buying the Vinga Typhoon for those who prioritize a comfortable noise level.

Conclusions

For its slightly more than $60 (1708 UAH), Vinga Typhoon is a very attractive device, both externally and in terms of technical specifications.

Although it is an average representative of non-serviceable water coolers, once you turn on the computer, the soft blue LED lighting of the propellers and water block radically changes the appearance of the system unit. If the side of the case is equipped with a transparent window, then the owner of the "typhoon" will definitely have something to admire.

The second point worth mentioning is the installation process. It will not cause any difficulties. Even the most inexperienced user, who can hold a Phillips screwdriver, will be able to perform it.

And, of course, performance. The bundled propellers, operating at a frequency of 1600 RPM, create a comfortable acoustic background that will not interfere with thinking at the PC. It is quite logical that with such a parameter, the novelty slightly lags behind more agile solutions. However, for cooling a modern AMD Ryzen or Intel Core processor, it will be quite suitable, and good results can be achieved even when reducing the speed to 1200 RPM.

Overall, Vinga Typhoon can become a kind of compromise in a modern system, allowing experimentation with overclocking at very comfortable noise levels. However, for those who want to embark on the challenging path of overclocking, we still recommend looking for either a water cooler with faster propellers or a large air cooler.

Advantages:

• pleasant appearance;
• efficient operation at low fan speeds;
• compatibility with most current and some outdated platforms;
• use of fans based on hydrodynamic bearings with a wide range of operating speeds and blue lighting;
• quiet operation;
• ease of installation;
• affordable price.

Features:

• compact size of the water block does not interfere with the installation of memory modules of any height;
• cooler is not compatible with AMD Socket TR4 platform.

Author: Oles Paholok 
Translation: Yuriy Koval

We express our gratitude to the companies AMD, ASUS, Enermax, Intel, Sea Sonic and TwinMOS for providing the equipment for the test bench.