DeepCool Assassin 4S Dual Tower Heatsink Review

The great thing about CPU aircooling is how affordable it can be from the initial purchase throughout the lifespan of the PC.  Coolers like the Assassin 4S are easy to install and require very little maintenance aside from an occasional dusting to clean the fans and heatsink fins.

The DeepCool Assassin 4S features a seven heatpipe design that is split across dual cooling towers.  This is done to maximize surface area and to take better advantage of the available cooling fan.  Had DeepCool gone with a much wider heatsink design they would lose cooling efficiency due to air friction inside the cooler.  By splitting the towers you are basically doubling the size of the heatsink and doubling the number of heatpipes without physically making the cooler any bigger.

To handle cooling, you will find a 140mm fluid dynamic fan located in the middle of the cooler and hidden under a decorative panel.  Without knowing the panel could be removed you would never know it was there.  This 140mm fan has a maximum speed of 1800rpm pushing 61cfm with a noise ceiling of 29dBA when running at full speed. 

An interesting feature of the Assassin 4S is the inclusion of a speed limiting switch (Silent Mode) that will reduce fan speed down to 1450rpm.  This will lower the overall noise profile down to 22dBA while also caping airflow down to 48cfm.  Sadly, there are no provisions to install a secondary fan but, in the event that you want to change the cooling profile it could be replaced with very little effort.

I don’t get to test that many aircoolers in the world of AIO watercooling dominance and I am extremely pleased that aircooling technology is not far behind the mightily AIO.  Aside from some extra fan noise the performance differences are not that different, provided you are running factory CPU clocks.  Standard heatsinks do suffer from “heat soak” when used on high powered CPUs but can do extremely well on down market processors such as the Core i7 and Core i5

Excellent Performance
Seven Heatpipe Solution
Easy Installation
Single Hidden Fan Design
Badass Black Color Theme
Extremely Stylish Design

Doesn’t look like a heatsink
Missed opportunity for indirect RGB lighting effects