Welcome to Rage3D's Xigmatek Dark Knight review! This is the third in our series of Xigmatek Reviews, covering their heatpipe direct touch CPU coolers. Previously we examined the HDT-S1283 three heatpipe cooler, and the HDT-S1284 four heatpipe cooler. This time we examine the Dark Knight to see how it differentiates from it's slightly cheaper brethren. Before we club open the box, let's look at the Dark Knight and have a quick chat with Xigmatek themselves:

Dark Knight Packaging

Xigmatek Chats with Rage3D

Founded in 2005, Xigmatek is a relatively new company with a target goal of becoming a leader in PC cooling through a combination of innovation and delivering value to their customers. Lets take a quick break from our Dark Knight review and talk with Xigmatek:

Rage3D: How many employees does Xigmatek have worldwide, and how are they distributed?

About 75 employees worldwide, with headquarters in Taiwan. Engineering labs are located in Taiwan, China and Europe, with a Design Center in Europe. Sales and Logistic units are present in the US, Europe, Taiwan and China.

Rage3D: Has the global economic downturn had an effect of Xigmatek, and if so in which areas? (i.e. cuts in R&D, staffing, sales etc.)

Xigmatek: We had not such a big impact as the big companies, we are still growing and we are working almost just in time which is saving us costs.

Rage3D: Xigmatek is a cool name - does it have any special meaning or derivation?

Xigmatek: Not really, the TEK means Technology but the XIGMA is more or less a branding name.

Rage3D: What's the best part of working for Xigmatek?

Xigmatek: All, good environment, innovation and more.

Rage3D: When planning & designing products, what is the focus? Innovation, providing a better product than a benchmark competitor, value for consumer, mix of all three, other?

Xigmatek: It is actually a mix of all; we always pay attention on the price performance and the additional features we can forward to our customers / end users.

Now, back to our regular scheduled programming! As previously seen in our Xigmatek HDT-S1283 and HDT-S1284 reviews, I'm benchmarking the Dark Knight using an AMD Phenom II 940 BE running on a Biostar TA790GXB A2+ motherboard, enclosed in an Antec 300 case. As such, you can look at those earlier reviews to see direct comparisons with the Dark Knight, as all tests were performed under the same conditions. Flip the page and lets look inside the box!