Introduction

We took a look at the XSPC Raystorm CPU block earlier this year, and it was impressive for the money overall. It did have a fair share of issues, mostly related to mounting. The Raystorm is an older block compared to most others tested here, and so I was really curious to see what XSPC had coming up next. They had been teasing the Raystorm Pro for a while now, and after some design tweaking it is here! Thanks a lot to Paul from XSPC for sending a sample for testing.

Let’s take a look at the specs courtesy the product page:

Solid aluminium bracket with acrylic inserts

New, high performance copper base

CNC cut, pure copper top

2 x 3mm LED holes

G1/4″ threads

Compatible with most compression fittings

Supports Intel sockets 1150, 1151, 1155, 1156, 1366, 2011 and 2011-3

Supplied with mounting hardware, 1150/1151/1155/1156, and 1366 backplates, twin blue (Reviewer note: White LEDs now, and from a different supplier) LED, allen key, and K3 thermal paste.

Already we see quite a few updates from the Raystorm- a solid aluminum (aluminium) mounting bracket by default compared to the mostly acrylic bracket before and a full copper top by default compared to an acetal top before. XSPC had a full copper top version of the Raystorm before and this is what the Raystorm Pro is going to be replacing. So let’s make no mistake here- the Raystorm will still continue to be sold alongside the Raystorm Pro. Another point to note here is that the Raystorm Pro comes in Intel or AMD only versions, and I have the Intel version with me. Once the AMD version is released, the specific mounting bracket should be available as an optional purchase should customers need it. Lastly, the Raystorm Pro comes with their newer K3 TIM which has been incorporated into the newer batches of the Raystorm as well. It is rated at a higher thermal conductivity compared to their K2 TIM, while applicability is still maintained as a priority. Let’s take a look at the package on the next page.