Introduction

Looking back through my past reviews, I came to realize that it has been almost a year since I have seen anything from Xigmatek. Somehow I missed out on the release of the Utgard, and before that, we last looked at the Bifrost VGA cooler, and the Balder CPU cooler just before that. So what has Xigmatek been up to these days? The simple answer is expansion. Not only has Xigmatek made it to the US and opened a New York office to better supply the needs of the US market, during all of that stress, behind the scenes they were developing new toys for me to look at. Along with a surprise or two coming down the line from Xigmatek, they have released a new CPU cooler for us to have a look at.

As the title leads, Xigmatek is keeping with the naming scheme that we are getting used to, and this new cooler also takes a mythological Norse Gods namesake. Doing a bit of digging on the name I found that Aegir refers to the god of the sea and all its creatures. For those not too hip to Norse legend, it echoes to legends of Poseidon from Greek lore. Either way, I get the reference to bring in the power of the vast oceans and seas to try to tame the latest processors. If history isn't your thing, don't worry; let me break the cooler down a bit to help explain what it is all about.

The Aegir SD128264 dual layer HDT cooler takes a few attributes from the mighty Thor's Hammer we tested last year after CES. Most obvious is the dual layer HDT. As the SD128264 name denotes, this is a 12cm CPU cooler with two 8mm diameter heatpipes, and four 6mm heat pipes. The base uses two of each 6mm and 8mm pipes to make HDT contact to the CPU. Then backing those up in a second, top layer is another pair of 6mm pipes to help remove the heat. That is where the similarities stop for the Aegir. The rest of the cooler has a design more reminiscent of the Balder crossed with a standard SD1283 cooler. I say we run through the specifications and get a good look at the Aegir and see if the Norse God has what it takes to stand up against the mighty fierce heat of today's processors.