Specifications, Availability and Pricing

As I mentioned, even with the Dark Knight naming, Xigmatek starts with the Balder, keeping the same three 8mm heat pipes, the direct touch of the pipes to the IHS and the same fin arrangement and shape. This tower cooler is 159mm tall and only 50mm deep without the fan. The pipes are made of copper, the fins and base plate are made from aluminum and the entire thing is spray coated with a specially formulated ceramic coating that leaves a flat black finish to the entire cooler.

The fan that accompanies the Xigmatek DK Night Hawk Edition is the A1225H12S which just so happens to sport the same exact specifications as the 120mm fan with white LEDs that came with the Balder. This fan is capable of delivering near 90 CFM of airflow with a pretty good static pressure rating. This is accomplished with 12V running through the fan and the blades turning at near 2200 RPM. Xigmatek lists the feature that this cooler will accept a dual fan configuration and even includes the fans mounts to do so; I just wish they had included the fan in the kit.

The Xigmatek Dark Knight SD1283 Night Hawk Edition is currently available at three locations via a quick search with Google shopping. Since the cooler was just released the first week of May this is really good news. In that search I found the cooler is listed at Newegg.com for $49.99 plus $4 to ship it. So for essentially $54 you can have this tower cooler in your machine looking all flat black with the glow of four white LEDs coming from the fan to look at through your window. Considering most of the coolers we have seen lately, this price is very good compared to all of the others, in fact the Cooler Master TPC 812 is the only one which is really close in pricing.

With that in mind, let's get through the packaging, product images and the mounting of the Dark Knight Night Hawk Edition so we can get to the abuse and see just how well this cooler can stand amongst the rest of the coolers I have tested.