Recently, we at Bigbruin.com sent out a call to a handful of cooling manufacturers - folks that most in the enthusiast community are quite familiar with - and they responded with a sampling of their best low noise socket 1156 CPU coolers. What better way to review all of these units than a good old fashioned shootout? Before we begin, let's look at a rundown of our competitors with a link to each cooler's official product page:

» Zalman CNPS10X Quiet
» Noctua NH-D14
» Thermalright MUX-120
» Cooler Master Hyper 212+
» Zaward Vapor 120
» Thermaltake Silent 1156



Here's a quick summary of all the key features and specifications for the units on hand: