Ironically enough, mini coolers probably sell as much as small form factor motherboards, because said motherboards almost always get stuffed into a case short or thin enough that the default coolers of the CPUs don't fit.

Either that or they're just too overpowered and/or noisy. That's why releasing mini coolers hoping for them to rise the holiday shopping season momentum isn't nearly as ridiculous as it sounds.

Thermalright has just released one such cooler, called Macho 90 and tailored specially for mini-ITX motherboards.

There's nothing stopping you from installing it on a micro-ATX or larger mainboard of course, but mid-range PCs will need something stronger than this.

Conversely, if it's a particularly strong but nonetheless energy-efficient and minimalistic computer that you're trying to build, the Silver Arrow ITX will probably work better. That's the other cooler that Thermalright has just released, but we're getting ahead of ourselves.

The Thermalright Macho 90

This cooler measures 102 x 127 x 135 mm / 4 x 5 x 5.31 inches and weighs around 552 grams / 1.21 pounds. The heatsink gets the CPU's heat through four 6-mm nickel-plated heatpipes.

The fan is a 92 mm model with a rotation speed of 800 to 2,000 RPM and airflow of 26.8 - 66.9 cubic meters per hour.

Energy comes through a normal 4-pin PWM power input and the noise level will swing between 21 and 27 dBA. Overall, pretty decent specs for something of this sort. Just don't expect it to easily fit in the Lian Li O Series wall cases, at least not the small ones.

The Macho 90 is designed in such a way that it fits in the space above the CPU socket without cutting into the space needed by RAM modules and other mainboard components.

As for CPU support, all Intel CPUs are supported by the Macho 90 except for the LGA 2011 and LGA 2011-3 type, which need a separate mounting kit.

The Silver Arror ITX cooler

Larger than the Macho 90, the Silver Arrow ITX measures 154 x 103 x 165 mm / 6.06 x 4.05 x 6.49 inches and weighs 870 grams / 1.91 pounds. It has six 6 mm heatpipes and a 140 mm fan with a speed of 300 to 1,300 RPM, airflow of 26.2 - 104.8 cubic meters per hour, and noise of 17 - 24.9 dBA.

Availability and pricing

The Macho 90 and Silver Arrow ITX have been given the prices of €30 / $36 and €60 / $73, including 19% VAT. Sales will begin in a week or so, at most.