Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler Review

A Closer Look at the Gelid Tranquillo

Gelid certainly showed their skill and knowledge in designing coolers when they built the Tranquillo. It really does thread that fine line between to small and to big for most people’s needs. This is something which we feel they got wrong with the Silent Spirit as that cooler simply did not have the mass to handle higher heat loads. The overall dimensions are 74(l) x 125(w) x 153(h) and it weighs in at 645 grams.


Without a doubt, the aluminum fin array of this cooler is unique in its design and layout. Gelid bent down the ends of the fins to make an almost box-like fin array which will certainly help keep the air from escaping out the sides before it can properly cool the heatpipes.


Anther factor which will help lower the chances of any air escaping out the sides is the face of the cooler’s fin array itself. If there is one area which the Tranquillo engineers hit a home run it has to be here. The Tranquillo has one of the deepest and most well thought out face designs we have seen in a long, long time. While the fin array does not have any serrations like Noctua’s designs nor a big hole in the center like the Prolimatech units, it does incorporate some very elegant design features.

In a nutshell, the face is designed in a deep “V” with the outer edges of the fin array quickly flowing in and away from where the fan will sit. Compared to flat sided affairs the static pressure needed to overcome the air inertia of the fin array is going to be drastically reduced, and by placing the deepest part of the V or grove in front of the fan engine hub they have also eliminated this dead zone found with most flat fin array faces.


The only issue we can foresee is that this V shape may funnel air up and down and not INTO the fin array itself (as a certain amount of the air will take the path of least resistance). Gelid did foresee this issue and on the top of the cooler they placed a plastic air dam which not only adds a nice snap to the overall looks of the cooler but basically abuts the top of the fan blocking the air from escaping up and out.


Instead of blocking the bottom of the fin array with another of these plastic air dams, Gelid went for a different approach: a “mini heatsink” on the top of the Tranquillo’s base.The theory behind these secondary heatsinks is to add surface area which will wick away even more heat from the CPU.


Helping to compensate for this interesting design move was the fact that all the fins have small bumps on them which form straight lines from front to back. These dimples have been designed into the fin array to help promote air flow and to help keep incoming airflow from escaping from the sides of the array. As we have seen in the past, with the OCZ Vendetta 2, these bumps may not be that large, but they could have a positive impact on temperatures.

As a nice bonus, these small bumps also have the added benefit of increasing the surface area of the fin array. With all other things being equal, the more surface area an air based CPU cooling solution, has the better it is.