Coolink GFXChilla GPU Cooler Review

Manufacturer Product Page: Coolink - the cooler manufacturer
Product Number: KL-02
Availability: Mid-March in Canada
Price: $30CAD (MSRP)
Warranty: 3 Years



Coolink isn’t a name which anyone outside of Europe has heard much about but they are ready to make their North American debut in the next few months and with it they will bring some very interesting cooling solutions to our shores. As a company, Coolink isn’t actually a stand-alone enterprise but rather it is the retail arm of the Kolink International Corporation which has acted as an OEM manufacturer for some of the most popular heatsinks on the market today. They are also partnered with Noctua in order to provide R&D support but Coolink represents their main foray into the retail marketplace. Since Coolink’s inception, they have been mostly focused on the European marketplace but as their stable of products has increased in size, so too have their aspirations of expansion into the lucrative North American marketplace.

Spearheading this push into North America is their new graphics card heatsink; the aptly-named GFXChilla. This cooler represents Coolink’s first graphics card heatsink and with it they are aiming straight at some of the most popular graphics cards on the market: the 8800GT and HD3870. Even with compatibility for these two best-selling cards, the GFXChilla also boasts compatibility for nearly every other graphics card made within the last few years including the Nvidia 7x00-series, 6x00-series as well as ATI’s X1800 and X1900 series. This broad compatibility coupled with the fact that Coolink advertises this as a silent, dual-slot cooling solution should make the GFXChilla a very popular choice among consumers.

The one thing about the GFXChilla that stands out the most is its price since our contacts tell us that once it hits Canadian retail shelves, it should retail for about $30CAD. This represents a 35% savings over the Thermaltake DuOrb and a whopping 45% savings over the Thermalright HR-03 GT. However, the GFXChilla doesn’t have any lofty expectations of taking the performance crown away from either of these two other heatsinks since it is billed as a drop-in replacement for a stock cooler with focus on silence rather than all-out performance. Performance aside, as we will see later that Coolink has provided some innovative additions to the GFXChilla in order to improve cooling performance by replacing the stock 80mm fans.

While a warranty of 3 years on any cooler is extremely competitive, the GFXChilla will be in tough company in this review. It will be competing against the massive HR-03 and the Thermaltake DuOrb while being asked to perform up to our expectations on the highest-end card it is compatible with: an 8800GTS 512MB.