With straightforward good looks and no-frills lighting, the ETS-T50 Axe provides solid cooling performance for most modern CPU platforms at a reasonable price.

In the spirit of keeping it simple, the ETS-T50 Axe is available either painted black or white; ours happened to be the handsome, matte-white finish. The front fan (120x25mm, branded by Enermax) is rated at 62.32 CFM at 1800 RPM and sports 36 white LEDs around the circumference. The lights can cycle through five lighting patterns manually using a small, connected button switch.

The fan blades themselves have shiny silver-adhesive strips, causing a mirror-ball reflection of the lighting at operating speeds. When the PC boots up, the cooling fan runs a 10-second phase of reverse cycling to help rid the blade surfaces of dust accumulation. The fan is powered by a four-pin PWM connector, and the fan cabling itself is sleeved in white nylon braid to match the rest of the cooler. The LED switch is really the only awkward component of the entire cooler, as it is a simple button at the end of a 5.0” (127mm) wire that dangles alongside the four-pin PWM cable.