Introduction

It seems like forever since Tony from Xigmatek and I have had any sort of conversation. If I recall it correctly, the last conversation we had was around the time of the Elysium release, so I am eager to see what Xigmatek has been up to lately. Looking back at the coolers I have seen from Xigmatek in the past, it does bring up some of my all time favorite coolers that I used for a long time in my own personal computers around the house. Coolers like the Dark Knight and Thor's Hammer, which were great coolers in their day with Nickel plated sexiness in my opinion. It seems at that point the urge to build larger coolers was out the window and Xigmatek paid more attention to the fins and how shapes and different designs can benefit airflow with the Balder.

Now, I have tested and used some of the largest CPU air coolers ever built with the exception of a very select few. I will always look for a cooler that doesn't have to encroach on other components room in either operation or installation. I am a fan of what the road taken that brought us in the Balder, and it makes me even more interested with what I have seen from our latest submission from Xigmatek. My reference to the Balder up to this point was that it showed Xigmatek is willing to think outside the box and deliver us coolers; that while they may look small, it proves that maybe size doesn't matter as much as we think.

The cooler we are going to be getting up close and personal with this time is the Xigmatek Prime SD1484 H.D.T. CPU cooler. While using a thin tower design is all that really is similar to the Balder, the Prime takes an unusual approach for Xigmatek. While arranging fins in the Thor was cool, the Prime takes a whole new approach to designing a fin while using leading edge shaping and profiling to attempt to attain maximum efficiency of the 140mm fan that cools this tower.

There is a lot to see with this newest submission; not only do the fins get a full re-work, but even the hardware has improved to solve one of the longest running issues with Xigmatek coolers, which is now on AMD where the cooler can be positioned as a tower cooler is intended to be. Without spilling all of the beans too early, I say we dig into the Prime SD1484 and see just what makes Xigmatek proud enough to label this cooler a "legend"!