Nice cooler for the price. Probably not the best option for a PC novice. On my R5 5600X, temperatures hover around 78°C when gaming in a well-ventilated case. The temperature leveled off at 72 C at 100% fan speed. The Shadow Max only lasted about 2 minutes in the Prime95 torture test before experiencing thermal throttling. This test was performed with the R7 3700X on an open bench at 49°C in standby mode with the fan speed set to 100%. Speaking of the fan, it's quieter than I expected. In addition, the design of the turbine copes quite well with the movement of a large volume of air. I like the unique design. The top comes apart easily with no parts breaking, so it's also easy to set up. Problems occur during installation. I've built hundreds of PCs and Jay hasn't had that many problems installing a cooler in decades. The backplane is plastic so it bends easily, the mounting screws and the standoffs they fit into are too small for the mounting holes on the motherboard. It's really hard to line up. I would happily pay another $5 for a metal base plate and heavier mounting hardware. It also seems like there isn't much quality control for the aesthetics. The anodized layer that colors the cooler black is very uneven (see photo).
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