Amazon Is Selling Its Own Branded CPU Air Cooler At A Killer Price But Is It Any Good?
We have a newcomer in the PC hardware space, though it's a name you're undoubtedly familiar with—Amazon. The mega online retailer has begun offering a CPU air cooler with RGB lighting through its Amazon Basics branding, and like its other in-house items, this one carries an aggressive price, putting it squarely into budget territory.
The asking price is $26.99 with free shipping. What do you get for the money? It's a chonky-looking cooler with the dimensions listed at 4.02 (L) x 3.28 (W) x 5.35 (H) inches. It consists of a large aluminum block with a stacked fin design and a series of four copper heatpipes plumbed through to help whisk heat away from the processor and distribute it throughout.
Photos and an installation video show the heatpipes are flattened on the CPU block to make direct contact with the processors integrated heatspreader (IHS). It also comes with a PWM fan and a push-button RGB lighting controller.
"This fan works with RGB certified motherboards. Its user-friendly bracket makes it quick and easy to snap into place or remove," Amazon says.
As we posed in the headline, is it any good? It's impossible to know without any hands-on testing and/or user impressions. However, from the cooler's construction down to the push-button RGB controller, this looks identical to Cooler Master's Hyper 410R RGB. And then there's this...
On the product page below the video, Amazon references Cooler Master, as shown above. This would suggest that it's a rebadged Cooler Master product, or that Amazon is sourcing the cooler from the same manufacturer in China. Whatever the case, there's a link to a popular brand.
The dimensions between the Amazon Basics model and Cooler Master's Hyper H410R RGB are the same (Cooler Master just rounded up a tad), and so are the fan specs (29.38 dB noise level, 600 to 2,000 RPM fan speed, and airflow listed at 34.73 CFM).
For reference, the Hyper H410R RGB now sells for around $68 on Amazon, albeit through a marketplace seller. Price tracking data shows it more recently was selling for around $48. Meanwhile, the Amazon Basics cooler priced at $26.99 is one of the cheaper options available.
That said, Cooler Master's hugely-popular Hyper 212 EVO consistently sells for around $35 on Amazon, if you don't care about RGB lighting. Likewise, be quiet!'s BK030 Pure Rock Slim goes for $26.90.
