1st Place: AMK HD-3
The AMK HD-3 wins this roundup by offering great performance at a good price. The HD-3 was only .2C behind the Global Win King Kong cooler in top side temp and beat the King Kong by .9C in bottom side temp.
The AMK HD-3 gets it great performance by using high performance 40x20mm fans. These fans are twice as deep as the fans used by the Just Coolers. See below.
Installation took the same amount of times as the other coolers that use rails to mount the hard drive. We did have a little trouble trying to get the fans to clear the hard drive bay. Those fans are very big. Add in the fan wires and it's a tight fit. The fans are also quite loud, but no louder than the fans used in the Global Win King Kong cooler.
The AMK HD-3 is a new model and is currently not listed on AMK's website. They are taking preorders however. At $23.50, we found the HD-3 to offer the best balance between performance, price and features. and the overall winner of our first hard drive cooler roundup.