Finally found an online store in Japan which sells all the highend aircoolers

If you had been following my blog for a while, you should know that I am very unhappy about my current CPU cooler, the CNPS9900MAX. 

Here's why. This cooler doesn't cool my Intel Core i7 2600K which is overclocked to 4.5GHz (1.32V) adequately at full fan speed. It reaches over 80C when I stress test using Prime95. On top of that poor performance, the noise is intolerable at full speed of the fan. I am running it at a low RPM of 1000, I stead of the maximum of 1700RPM. This means the CPU runs even hotter. Of course I don't run stress tests all the time, and there is no reason to run it at all because in fixed to this overclock. But when I play games and transcode videos (eg: gameplay footages to upload to YouTube), the temps of the CPU reach 80C after a while. That is not good. 80C is fine for stress testing but it should not hit 70C while doing even the demanding day to day tasks. The only advantage of having this cooler is that it fits my case without any issues, especially with the monstrous and needless tall heat sinks of the Corsair Vengeance memory. 

So, I've been looking around for the good coolers that's available in Japan and I found that the only thing that is listed on kakaku.com which fitted my criteria was Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E (and the Extreme version of it at a slightly higher price.) The difference was only the CFM of the fans and hence the noise. The extreme version is significantly louder than the original version. But it cools much better at that ridiculously high fan speed. I checked around if it at least fitted the case and people are saying it does, even though the max height of the cooler supported by the Raven RV03 case is 163mm and this cooler is 165mm tall. And, if I move the front fan to the back as a pull fan, I can fit it without removing the heat sinks on my memory. Win. 

I couldn't find the Noctua NH-D14 which is almost identical to the Silver Arrow but works better with high heat and the current king of the air coolers, the Phanteks PH-TC14PE on kakaku.com. Shame! The Phanteks doesn't fit y case because it reaches 170mm high, but the Noctua does. Noctua has better build quality, plus, it is easier to install than the Silver Arrow. The other option was to get a self contained water cooler like the H80i or H100i. But they only cool well with high fan speeds, and I won't be able to tolerate that a bit. I will definitely have to run the fans on those at lowest and that would undoubtedly cripple the performance. 

So I had come to the conclusion that the only option I had was the Silver Arrow until I just did a google search for the Phanteks. I came across a Japanese store called OLIO.SPEC. And guess what? They have the NH-D14 and many other cool gadgets including the highly praised Noctua fans. 

Here are the prices.

NH-D14: ¥9,980

Silver Arrow SB-E Extreme: ¥8,990

Phanteks PH-TC14PE: ¥12,900

Sure, the prices aren't cheap, but at least they are available if you want. So that's good. I'm sure there are more stores that don't get indexed up on kakaku.com. I should use google more than kakaku in the future. BTW, you can get a Silver Arrow SB-E Extreme for ¥8,563.