Introduction

Established in 1991, Spire was founded with the aim of providing performance coolers to consumers at good prices, and with the expansion of their corporation, and factories in many of the world's nations (Netherlands, U.K., Germany, France, Taiwan, Japan and Brazil); they continue to expand with the focus of working with the consumer to provide the best possible solution. Today on our test bench sits the Spire KestrelKing VI, a thermally controlled budget option from Spire.

KestrelKing VI

The KestrelKing VI comes to us in a fairly bland retail box, which strangely enough, advertises "Retail Box" as a feature. Aside from this, it is the standard budget cooler box, and included within are a small syringe of thermal paste, a mounting bracket for those with motherboards that utilize the plastic backplate and the sink itself.

As to the cooler itself, it is constructed by a grouping of thin aluminum fins soldered to a copper baseplate, cooled by a thermally controlled 70x70x25MM fan with speeds ranging from 3000 to 6000 RPM while emitting 21 to 40 dbA. The fan itself is manufactured by F.T.C .and is capable of 21.3-49.1 CFM respectively Along with this; the sink is mostly surrounded by a nicely polished shroud, which helps to direct the airflow to where it's needed. Our only gripe to this design is that soldered fins induce a much higher thermal resistance than cast or skived fins (fins in which are literally pulled off the copper block in thin sheets). We've seen that this hurts performance before, and coupled with the base, Spire's surface area and airflow advantages could be all for naught. Moving to the base of the cooler, the budget roots of the sink become quickly and painfully apparent, as the base was rife with machining marks, and while no sound could be heard when running a nail across the sink, it could certainly be felt. Perhaps a smoother base would have contributed to lower temperatures, yet considering the low cost of this unit; this flaw is passable for the time being.