**A Closer Look at the Antech CLC 1250: A Cooling Solution with Some Quirks**

When it comes to CPU coolers, installation can often be one of the most frustrating and annoying parts of the process. For me, the Antech CLC 1250 is a prime example of this. Despite its claim of being super easy to install, I found the process to be quite cumbersome due to several reasons. Firstly, the mounting bracket brushes right up against the chokes on some motherboard designs, making it a bit of a nervous wreck trying to get it tightened without causing any damage. The lack of clearance on either side where the RAM goes or the VRM heat sinks are also a concern, as I had to take a few tries to get everything just right.

However, it's worth noting that the design itself is fairly innovative and forward-thinking in terms of the present CLC market. Antech has taken a bold approach with their custom fan design, which actually does impact cooling quite substantially. The dual-pump system is a key feature here, and when combined with the custom fans, it makes for some impressive performance numbers.

**Benchmarking the Antech CLC 1250**

To put the Antech CLC 1250 through its paces, I set up my test rig and ran it on various benchmarks. The results were impressive to say the least. On the CPU Cooler benchmark, the Antech CLC 1250 came in first place, leaving Corsair's H110 in the dust. This is no surprise, given the custom fan design and dual-pump system, which seem to work quite well together.

The Antech software control is also a standout feature. Users can adjust fan speeds, lighting, and other settings to suit their needs. There are three primary fan speed settings: extreme, silent, and custom. The extreme setting is quite loud, almost like a jet engine, and is definitely not suitable for normal gaming or movie-watching use. However, it's perfect for extreme overclocking or rendering tasks where noise isn't an issue.

The silent setting, on the other hand, is a different story altogether. It's incredibly quiet, with barely any audible noise at all. This makes it an ideal choice for those who value silence above all else. In fact, I found that using a custom setting at 1500 RPM works best - it provides good cooling power while still keeping noise levels down.

**Conclusion: Is the Antech CLC 1250 Worth It?**

Overall, I'm very satisfied with the Antech CLC 1250 performance and features. The design may have some quirks, but these are largely outweighed by its impressive performance numbers. At a competitive price point of around $120, it's hard to argue against this cooler being one of the best in the market.

If you're looking for alternatives, there are a few options worth considering. Antex 950 is a smaller form factor version of this cooler, while NZXT's A40 is another compact option. Corsair's H110 is still a solid choice at $80, and if budget isn't an issue, it's definitely worth saving the money.

One thing that could use some serious overhaul is the installation process itself. I found it to be quite frustrating due to the mounting bracket's design and lack of clearance on either side. However, this is a minor quibble in an otherwise excellent cooler.

**Additional Resources**

For more information on the Antech CLC 1250 and our full testing methodology, please check out the article link below. We also have links to all the products mentioned in the video in the description box at the end of this article. If you need help with your PC or have questions about any of these products, feel free to post on our forums - we're here to help and offer free support.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey everyone this is Steve from Gamers nexus.net and today we're looking at anc's new cooler 1250 closed loop liquid cooling solution which uses an oow so of course it is very good at uh being in a metal band I guess and it actually it uses a unique dual pump design with the pumps mounted at top the fans so it is a bit different than what we're used to I ended up with two of these to test so I decided to take the whole thing apart and show you how it works as well as of course the normal bench marking first the specs antex cooler 1250 is their newest high-end 240 mm liquid cooler using an entirely in-house design and custom tooling by antec most clc's that we commonly talk about if you are not aware use ACH for their their components and ACH is a supplier that basically builds the same product and puts new stickers on it they're they're just they they make it and then Corsair NZXT whatever they put their sticker and their LED on it so uh occasionally some coolers do use other suppliers like coolit and there a couple others but the point is that an in-house design is rare it's pretty much limited to Cooler Master antech and maybe one or two uh offhand designs from other companies right now the 1250 uses two high RPM 120 mm fans bolted to the radiator and these are pre-installed so you won't be able to install your own fans uh but they are pretty high-powered stock a top each fan is a pump the pumps work in a push pole configuration to move the coolant through the radiator and and the cold plate so I say Push Pull of course it's it's just a pump right it just it just pumps it does both pushing and pulling but because there are two of them it is more efficient at uh pushing it to the CPU and then pulling it back up to the red from the bottom up and this is true for all liquid coolers from the bottom up we start with a copper cold plate that rests the top the CPU the cold plate uses a smooth copper finish for direct contact with the cpu's IHS and a thermal interface obviously goes between the two for any bump that that need to be mitigated the cold plate is attached to the CPU block which is where our two hoses connect and liquid goes comes in from one hose and is pushed through the channels in the cold plate so the cold plate as you can see actually has little channels cut through the copper so it's pushed through those and then it's pulled out the next hose and and kind of push pulled back up to the radiator once the liquid is ascends the exit tube and reaches the radiator the entire uh time this is happening the pump are working in unison to do all of the movement and they can because there are two pumps we see an accelerated rate at which the liquid moves which of course accelerates the rate at which it cools down and can be reused so the cycle is is a bit faster and more efficient in theory cooler liquid of course does mean a cooler cold plate which means a cooler CPU so the concept's very simple and in theory it sounds fantastic in practice you'll see the performance results in a moment what you're seeing right now now though is a comparison of the antec cooler pump design against the standard a tech supplied one in this case a Corsair h110 you can see that the h110 uses a plastic rotor to pump the liquid through the channels that ultimately cools the cold plate the pump itself is on top of the CPU in this instance so uh it is responsible for pushing the liquid to the radiator and then pulling it back down and this is fundamentally different from the 1250s design uh and and we'll see which one performs better in benchmarks the h110 is the current leader on our uh CPU Cooler chart FYI now as great as all this sounds anex design does have a few complications but they're not too bad I do want to go over them though for starters it's bulky if your case was advertised as being designed for a 240mm radiator they might have designed it specifically for the Standalone radiators which use user mounted fans uh the NZXT Phantom cases for instance you wouldn't be able to mount the anch 12 50 in the top of those cases because the fans are too tall and there's not enough clearance so you'd have to install the cooler on the underside of this which of course means it will hang into the case more this could be a problem with some enclosures it wasn't with the 820 I was testing with similarly problematic the mounting system for the 1250 is one of the most annoying installations I've ever endured for a CPU Cooler it's it's kind of clumsy and combersome for a few reasons antech check this they say it's super easy I mean you know great if you guys make it and you can install it fast I that's probably a good thing you should probably be able to do that I found it annoying so the biggest reason it was annoying is because the mounting bracket itself brushes right up against the chokes on some motherboard designs for for the vrm in my case I'm using a gd65 from MSI it's sitting on those chokes and installing it made me nervous enough to really you know double check myself constantly take a few tries to get the bracket tightened and there's barely enough clearance on either side where the ram goes uh and where the uh vrm heat sinks go for the hoses and the cabling so it did fit just you know if you have one of those boards it will fit but it it did take a good bit of courage to do so all that said the design itself is fairly Innovative when it comes to the present CLC market and I'm excited to see where antech takes it let's get to Benchmark so you can view our full testing methodology in the article in the link below on the bench anex cooler is a firm first place liquid cooler makes our best of bench award away from Corsair and is uh on this is on the extreme setting I'll talk about settings in a second you can see it's positioned just ahead of corsair's h110 which is our previous pack leader on the CPU Cooler bench it seems that the Dual pump design in this case actually does work quite well and the custom fans do impact cooling pretty substantially antech software controls the fan speed settings and the lighting the LEDs there are two different settings extreme and silent and then there's a custom setting that you can config figure RPMs vary from 600 to 3,000 with 3,00 and 650 being the extreme and Silent settings respectively quite honestly the extreme setting sounds like a jet engine and is in my opinion too loud for normal human use it's great if you're doing extreme overclocking or rendering where you can kind of walk away from the machine or you don't care about noise but if you're gaming or if you're watching a movie you don't want that noise so it's not a setting you'd ever want while gaming but it's not made for that right it's made for extreme overclocking so if it's not the right setting for it I made the same exact statement about Corsair and NZXT extreme settings basically think of Extreme as the Showcase it's the Showcase car silent is is truly pretty dead silent and I didn't hear any annoying worrying or vibrational noise and that is the Showcase of as quiet as it gets I found that using a custom setting at 1500 RPM works best it gives good cooling power and still keeps it relatively silent about as quiet as your PSU fan will be anyway and ante if you're listening make A500 RPM mid-range option a default Choice uh maybe even the stock Choice it makes the most sense for end users let them play around in custom with some other thing but give them, 1500 by default as for the LED stuff it's pretty basic yeah big range of LEDs nothing important so you can set any color you want including black overall I'm very satisfied with the antec cooler 1250 installation needs a serious overhaul and if I see it again I'm going to keep complaining about it until it's fixed but I can live with the hassle given the awesome performance performance and silence options just be aware that you're going to curse and yell while you're trying to figure out if it'll actually fit on your board with the chokes anyone who wants to stay away from open loop cooling but still has a large budget for liquid or wants silence this is our new front runner it handily beats out corsair's h110 at 120 bucks it's a pretty competitive price it's about the same price maybe a little more and uh easy pickup all day long if you're looking for Alternatives I'd say check out antax 950 for a smaller form factor ver version of this also uh NZXT is x40 for a small version and corsair's h110 is still a damn good cooler if you can pick it up at 80 bucks it's probably worth saving the money just depends on your budget and your objectives Silverstone has a brand new unit out and I'm in the process of reviewing that now check descriptions for links to all these products in the description below that will help you find something for your PC if you need more help post on our forums it's free support free to ask a question and uh hit the full review and Benchmark below and I will see you all next time peacehey everyone this is Steve from Gamers nexus.net and today we're looking at anc's new cooler 1250 closed loop liquid cooling solution which uses an oow so of course it is very good at uh being in a metal band I guess and it actually it uses a unique dual pump design with the pumps mounted at top the fans so it is a bit different than what we're used to I ended up with two of these to test so I decided to take the whole thing apart and show you how it works as well as of course the normal bench marking first the specs antex cooler 1250 is their newest high-end 240 mm liquid cooler using an entirely in-house design and custom tooling by antec most clc's that we commonly talk about if you are not aware use ACH for their their components and ACH is a supplier that basically builds the same product and puts new stickers on it they're they're just they they make it and then Corsair NZXT whatever they put their sticker and their LED on it so uh occasionally some coolers do use other suppliers like coolit and there a couple others but the point is that an in-house design is rare it's pretty much limited to Cooler Master antech and maybe one or two uh offhand designs from other companies right now the 1250 uses two high RPM 120 mm fans bolted to the radiator and these are pre-installed so you won't be able to install your own fans uh but they are pretty high-powered stock a top each fan is a pump the pumps work in a push pole configuration to move the coolant through the radiator and and the cold plate so I say Push Pull of course it's it's just a pump right it just it just pumps it does both pushing and pulling but because there are two of them it is more efficient at uh pushing it to the CPU and then pulling it back up to the red from the bottom up and this is true for all liquid coolers from the bottom up we start with a copper cold plate that rests the top the CPU the cold plate uses a smooth copper finish for direct contact with the cpu's IHS and a thermal interface obviously goes between the two for any bump that that need to be mitigated the cold plate is attached to the CPU block which is where our two hoses connect and liquid goes comes in from one hose and is pushed through the channels in the cold plate so the cold plate as you can see actually has little channels cut through the copper so it's pushed through those and then it's pulled out the next hose and and kind of push pulled back up to the radiator once the liquid is ascends the exit tube and reaches the radiator the entire uh time this is happening the pump are working in unison to do all of the movement and they can because there are two pumps we see an accelerated rate at which the liquid moves which of course accelerates the rate at which it cools down and can be reused so the cycle is is a bit faster and more efficient in theory cooler liquid of course does mean a cooler cold plate which means a cooler CPU so the concept's very simple and in theory it sounds fantastic in practice you'll see the performance results in a moment what you're seeing right now now though is a comparison of the antec cooler pump design against the standard a tech supplied one in this case a Corsair h110 you can see that the h110 uses a plastic rotor to pump the liquid through the channels that ultimately cools the cold plate the pump itself is on top of the CPU in this instance so uh it is responsible for pushing the liquid to the radiator and then pulling it back down and this is fundamentally different from the 1250s design uh and and we'll see which one performs better in benchmarks the h110 is the current leader on our uh CPU Cooler chart FYI now as great as all this sounds anex design does have a few complications but they're not too bad I do want to go over them though for starters it's bulky if your case was advertised as being designed for a 240mm radiator they might have designed it specifically for the Standalone radiators which use user mounted fans uh the NZXT Phantom cases for instance you wouldn't be able to mount the anch 12 50 in the top of those cases because the fans are too tall and there's not enough clearance so you'd have to install the cooler on the underside of this which of course means it will hang into the case more this could be a problem with some enclosures it wasn't with the 820 I was testing with similarly problematic the mounting system for the 1250 is one of the most annoying installations I've ever endured for a CPU Cooler it's it's kind of clumsy and combersome for a few reasons antech check this they say it's super easy I mean you know great if you guys make it and you can install it fast I that's probably a good thing you should probably be able to do that I found it annoying so the biggest reason it was annoying is because the mounting bracket itself brushes right up against the chokes on some motherboard designs for for the vrm in my case I'm using a gd65 from MSI it's sitting on those chokes and installing it made me nervous enough to really you know double check myself constantly take a few tries to get the bracket tightened and there's barely enough clearance on either side where the ram goes uh and where the uh vrm heat sinks go for the hoses and the cabling so it did fit just you know if you have one of those boards it will fit but it it did take a good bit of courage to do so all that said the design itself is fairly Innovative when it comes to the present CLC market and I'm excited to see where antech takes it let's get to Benchmark so you can view our full testing methodology in the article in the link below on the bench anex cooler is a firm first place liquid cooler makes our best of bench award away from Corsair and is uh on this is on the extreme setting I'll talk about settings in a second you can see it's positioned just ahead of corsair's h110 which is our previous pack leader on the CPU Cooler bench it seems that the Dual pump design in this case actually does work quite well and the custom fans do impact cooling pretty substantially antech software controls the fan speed settings and the lighting the LEDs there are two different settings extreme and silent and then there's a custom setting that you can config figure RPMs vary from 600 to 3,000 with 3,00 and 650 being the extreme and Silent settings respectively quite honestly the extreme setting sounds like a jet engine and is in my opinion too loud for normal human use it's great if you're doing extreme overclocking or rendering where you can kind of walk away from the machine or you don't care about noise but if you're gaming or if you're watching a movie you don't want that noise so it's not a setting you'd ever want while gaming but it's not made for that right it's made for extreme overclocking so if it's not the right setting for it I made the same exact statement about Corsair and NZXT extreme settings basically think of Extreme as the Showcase it's the Showcase car silent is is truly pretty dead silent and I didn't hear any annoying worrying or vibrational noise and that is the Showcase of as quiet as it gets I found that using a custom setting at 1500 RPM works best it gives good cooling power and still keeps it relatively silent about as quiet as your PSU fan will be anyway and ante if you're listening make A500 RPM mid-range option a default Choice uh maybe even the stock Choice it makes the most sense for end users let them play around in custom with some other thing but give them, 1500 by default as for the LED stuff it's pretty basic yeah big range of LEDs nothing important so you can set any color you want including black overall I'm very satisfied with the antec cooler 1250 installation needs a serious overhaul and if I see it again I'm going to keep complaining about it until it's fixed but I can live with the hassle given the awesome performance performance and silence options just be aware that you're going to curse and yell while you're trying to figure out if it'll actually fit on your board with the chokes anyone who wants to stay away from open loop cooling but still has a large budget for liquid or wants silence this is our new front runner it handily beats out corsair's h110 at 120 bucks it's a pretty competitive price it's about the same price maybe a little more and uh easy pickup all day long if you're looking for Alternatives I'd say check out antax 950 for a smaller form factor ver version of this also uh NZXT is x40 for a small version and corsair's h110 is still a damn good cooler if you can pick it up at 80 bucks it's probably worth saving the money just depends on your budget and your objectives Silverstone has a brand new unit out and I'm in the process of reviewing that now check descriptions for links to all these products in the description below that will help you find something for your PC if you need more help post on our forums it's free support free to ask a question and uh hit the full review and Benchmark below and I will see you all next time peace\n"