DeepCool was founded in 1996 in Beijing, China and is a favorite of many enthusiasts. They are well known for their air and water coolers and computer cases. They also offer fans, power supplies, and peripherals such as keyboards and mice. One thing I like about DeepCool is not only are they constantly striving to innovate to create products with higher cooling capacity – but they also push the performance/$ bar, providing products that don’t break the bank.
DeepCool AG500 Air Cooler
Foreword
Over the past few weeks I’ve been exploring different levels of cooling with AMD’s Ryzen 7 7700X CPU. Last I tested EKWB’s AIO Elite 280, which surprised me by able to keeping the CPU under TJmax in intensive workloads. On the opposite end, I tested BeQuiet’s Pure Rock LP SFF cooler – which was only able to cool 66W.
In the past I’ve mentioned how my past testing of coolers had focused on Intel CPUs because they were the most challenging to cool and also consumed the most power. When Alder Lake was released, I noticed that the thermal difficulty of cooling the 12900K was more difficult compared to prior generation products – only a few coolers were able to keep it under TJMax.
Intel’s i9-13900K and AMD’s Ryzen 7 7700X CPUs can be even more difficult to cool in heat intensive workloads – and this trend is likely to continue with future generations of CPUs. As CPUs continue to shrink in size, thermal density rises, increasing the difficulty of cooling. Indeed, it is no longer worrying to run a desktop CPU at it’s peak temperature – it is to be expected in intense workloads without power restrictions or undervolting.
I have been interested to see how different levels of cooling performance effect both AMD and Intel platforms for some time. Thanks to our partner ASRock this is now possible – they sent a sample of their B650E Taichi for testing purposes. I will be taking a closer look at this motherboard in the future – but in the meantime check out reviews of this pristine motherboard on Funkykit & Tom’s Hardware.
Introducing DeepCool’s GAMMAXX AG500 Air Cooler
Packaging and Included Contents
The AG500 arrives in a box that looks like any other from the outside. The inner contents are packaged with molded foam for the protection of the individual parts.
Included in the package are
AG500 Heatsink
Single use packet of thermal paste
1x 120mm fan
Mounting for AMD AM4 & AM5 platforms
Mounting for Intel LGA 115x, 1200, and 1700
User Manual
AM4 and AM5 Installation
For the most part, the installation of DeepCool’s GAMMAXX AG500 was fairly straightforward and simple.
To ensure maximum efficiency in heat transfer, the heatpipes of the AG500 make direct contact with the CPU.
Matrix Fins Array
The fins of the AG500 are made of high-quality aluminum, densely stacked for ideal heat dissipation. They include a “checkerboard” design to help improve total static pressure.
Simple and Secure Installation
The included mounting brackets support modern Intel and AMD platforms, with a simple five-step installation process
There’s more to a cooler than just it’s heat sink, the fans paired with a cooler have a huge impact both total cooling potential and noise levels – included with the AG500 is a single fine-tuned 120mm ARGB PWM fan.
DeepCool advertises the following with this fan:
“Get the best of both worlds with a fine-tuned 120mm ARGB PWM fan designed for optimal balance in top performance under load to silent efficiency when idle. Highly effective with strong static pressure for rapid heat transfer throughout the heat sink.“
Model
Unlisted
Size
120 x 120 x 25 mm
Speed
300~1850 RPM±10%
Blades
9
Airflow
67.88 CFM
Static Pressure
2.04 mmAq
Noise Level
Up to 29.4 dB(A)
Bearing
Hydro Bearing
Connector
4-pin PWM
Test Platform Configuration
This review will focus on testing results on AMD’s AM5 platform. For those interested in the performance of this cooler with Intel’s i9-13900K, please check out my review on Boring Text Reviews.
As I’ve only had time to complete testing of five coolers on this platform, there will be limited comparison data. This will grow as I continue to test coolers. For thermal results, I’ve tested the CPU in three configurations
At the default power limits
With a 95W PPT enforced
With a 75W PPT enforced.
Noise Normalized Results
Performance only scales by a limited amount with improved cooling capacity with Ryzen 7000. This also means that there is less of a benefit to running fans at higher performance levels. As such, it can be useful to see how coolers compared when noise normalized for quiet operation.
I was extremely surprised to see the AG500 doing as well as it did here, in fact I ran this test multiple times to make sure there was no human error. DeepCool’s AG500 performed just a couple of watts behind Fractal’s 280mm AIO in this noise normalized scenario, quite impressive for “just” an air cooler.
Default Power Limits
At the default PPT of 105W, the most intensive loads can be difficult to cool and result in the CPU running at TJMax. As such, we’ll be looking at two metrics in this situation: Noise levels and watts cooled.
Handling an average of 124W during the course of testing, DeepCool’s AG500 pulls ahead of IceBerg Thermal’s G4 Silent by 8 watts. It achieves this at a slight noise cost, running 0.8 decibels louder than IceBerg Thermal’s cooler.
Some of y’all might notice that the graph starts at 36 instead of zero – this is because my sound meter cannot measure noise levels lower than 36 dBA, effectively making it the noise floor for our testing purposes.
95W PPT
Imposing even a minor power consumption limit on AMD’s Ryzen 7700X reduces cooling difficulty dramatically resulting in the ability to easily to cool the CPU under TJMax (95c), as such in these situations the total noise levels are more important. It’s also important to test in these TDP restricted situations, because most “real life” workloads will not push the CPU to it’s limits.
The results in this scenario are much like those in the full power test. DeepCool’s AG500 provides better cooling capacity than IceBerg Thermal’s G4 Silent, running 4C cooler – but it runs slightly louder to achieve those results.
75W PPT
Lowering the PPT to 75W further reduces the cooling difficulty, bringing CPU temperatures down to 43C over a 23C ambient temperature. DeepCool achieves the same silent noise levels as the competing IceBerg Thermal cooler in this test, but runs an impressive six degrees cooler.
Conclusion
DeepCool’s AG500 performed well in our testing, especially when noise normalized for silent operation. At only $39.99, it won’t break the bank either – this is firmly in budget territory. If you’re looking for a good performing air cooler that isn’t noisy, you won’t go wrong with DeepCool’s GAMMAXX AG500 BK ARGB.
DeepCool AG500
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