Founded in 2008, GELID Solutions Ltd. is a company most famous for its PC cooling solutions. Their products are often on the recieving end of accolades and awards, such as GC Extreme thermal paste which we use on pretty much every CPU cooler test. Of course, we pounced on the chance to test the new cooler from Gelid's workshop, and we're talking about the new mainstream tower cooler dubbed the Tranquillo. As the name suggests, this should be a pretty quiet cooling solution.

Packaging

Gelid Tranquillo comes in a stylish cardboard box. As usual, the box features plenty of info, specs as well as a couple of pictures.



The front side of the box lists an array of supported sockets, including Intel's 1366 and 1156 for i5 and i7 processors.



Within the box you'll find the cooler with the fan, as well as a box containing all the needed parts for mounting the cooler on different sockets, GC2 thermal paste and the user's manual.


A Closer Look

The looks and size of Tranquillo are a good indication of good performance. The heatsink is made of aluminum whereas the heatpipe and the base are made of copper.



The heatsink measures 74mm x 125mm x 153mm (WxLxH), and the fan measures 120mm x 120mm x 25mm.



Tranquillo comes with four heatpipes, which branch out from the base. On their way to the top of the cooler, the heatpipes pass through the heatsink's aluminum fins, which feature numerous tiny bumps in order to improve cooling efficiency.



The heatsink features a unique design that should, as the manufacturer claims, enable for maximum airflow.





On the upper side of the heatsink, you'll find a screw-attached plastic plate. Although one would at a glance think that this is just a designer detail with Tranquillo logo, one would be wrong – after mounting the fan, you'll notice that the plate is almost a part of it. At the same time, the plate covers the hole between the fan and the heatsink, so air will retain its path through the heatsink unhindered. Simple but efficient we must say.



Due to its unique design, Tranquillo can only feature one 1200mm fan. It uses a 4-pin "smart" PWM fan running from 750-1500 rpm and will dynamically regulate the speed. 

The manufacturer's specs claim noise levels go from 12-25,5 dBA, and although we do not own appropriate equipment to put their claims to the test, we must say that it's surprisingly quiet even at maximum rpm. The specs say the fan will run for 50.000 hours at 40 degrees Celsius.



The cooler's base is made of copper, whereas the upper side of the base comes with an aluminum radiator with 40 cooling fins, so the four heatpipes are basically sandwiched in between.





Gelid has once again shows nice designer prowess. The fan is about 1cm longer than the heatsink, so the air that passes underneath the heatsink cools the aluminum fins located on top of the base.



Tranquillo can be mounted on Intel's LGA 775, 1366 and 1156 Socket, as well as AMD's 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3 sockets. Gelid says that Tranquillo packs enough punch to take on a plethora of CPUs, including the likes of Pentium D/ Pentium 4/ All Celeron D/ All Pentium Dual-Core/ Extreme/ All Core 2 Extreme/ Core 2 Quad/ Core 2 Duo, Core i5, Core i7, Athlon 64 X2, Athlon 64, All Athlon 64 FX, Opteron, Sempron, Phenom, Phenom II.

For mounting on Intel sockets, the cooler uses a backplate, which holds the cooler firmly in place and greatly decreases the risk of damaging your board. This cooler weighs 645 grams, so it's no wonder.

For AMD sockets, Traquillo uses the standard mechanism.