Verdict: Effective at high fan speeds, but it's too loud for comfort.

Rockets would make poor CPU coolers, as their combustion chambers typically reach 3,200ûC, which is more than double the melting point of silicon, the principal ingredient of a CPU.

Fortunately, the 3D Rocket II doesn't behave like a rocket, although when its 92mm fan spins at maximum speed, it's extremely loud. At minimum fan speed, the 3D Rocket II is comparatively well behaved, although the fan is still audible.

The 3D Rocket II conducts heat through a series of eight heatpipes into a large hollowed-out circle of aluminium fins, which in turn are cooled by a variable-speed 92mm fan and a fixed-speed 70mm fan. The 70mm fan blows air downwards to provide extra cooling for the VRMs clustered around the CPU socket.

The 3D Rocket II is easy to mount on Socket AM2 CPUs; it clips onto the standard motherboard mounting bracket. At low speed, the CPU was 1ûC cooler than it was with the reference AMD HSF, and 10ûC cooler at full speed. The LGA775 mounting method is a little more involved, as the HSF has to be screwed through the motherboard. At low speed, the Core 2 Quad CPU ran 4ûC hotter than it did with the reference Intel HSF, but at full speed, it was 4ûC cooler.

While the 3D Rocket II is easy to mount on Socket AM2 boards and cools components around the CPU socket too, it only provides good cooling when the fan is set to maximum speed. But, given how loud the fan is, we can't recommend it.

• Cases - 21st November 2008
• Motherboards - 24th October 2008
• Gaming Headsets - 26th September 2008
• Dream PCs - 24th September 2008
• Headphones - 12th September 2008
• Media PC components - 22nd August 2008
• PSUs - 14th July 2008

• OCZ Core Series 30GB - Hard disks / storage
• Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB - Hard disks / storage
• Asus EAH4870 TOP - Graphics cards
• Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro - Sound cards
• Multiwinia - Games
• Zotac GeForce GTX 260² - Graphics cards
• Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2 - Graphics cards