In the next comparison, we look at the default cooler performance as they come out of the box with their bundled fans. Coolers that come with no fans have been coupled with Noctua’s NF-P12 or fans that the manufacturers intended their coolers to be used with.


In its default configuration, the Himalaya finds itself in the middle of the table. It is comparable to the Cooler Master Hyper 612S and its closest rival, the Archon. The Matterhorn and Triglav are lower down the table, indicating as expected that the Himalaya is a higher end offering from Alpenföhn. It is also a mere 0.5C short of the Corsair H100 with its fan at 1300RPM which given the smaller footprint of the Himalaya is impressive.


Using two Noctua NF-P12s, the Himalaya falls slightly short of the Archon suggesting that the latter is more efficient with the smaller fan. Surprisingly, it matches the 3 heat piped Triglav. The Himalaya impresses in that it can generate the same result as Antec’s high end 920 ALC but disappoints compared to other single tower coolers.


With the Coolink fans instead, its efficiency proves better than the Corsair H100 and Antec’s ALC units. It also sounds beats the Archon by 1C implying that the more densely packed fin array benefits from the higher RPM fans.


The Himalaya was built with 140mm fans in mind so it’s not surprising to see it perform admirably with two Noctua NF-P14s. It matches the Archon’s efficiency and can only be outperformed by larger single and dual tower coolers.