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Cooler Master V10 Heatsink Review
Author: William West
Published: Saturday, May 09, 2009
Conclusion
In the human mindset if you see something big you expect it to be something incredible to size proportion. The Cooler Master V10 does give this kind of "Wow" first impression. It is huge, and even has some TEC cooling magic. Then seeing the price tag of over $125 dollars must make it one of the best coolers ever, right. Well unfortunately this is not the case at all. The Cooler Master V10 has a large price tag that even comes close to some of the mid range water cooling setups, but to be honest it does not perform as well. The V10 does a great job though with Core 2 processors without a doubt. Even the quads do very well with it. Still Cooler Master put the V10 on the Core i7 list. So for the price you would think it would do rather well with the i7 processor with some overclocking. The Cooler Master V10 falls very short in this area.
With the engineering gone into the making of the TEC portion of the V10 we had thought this would be an awesome cooler. The tragedy is that it is only able to pull 70 Watts at its peak. This is a pretty weak amount of power compared to what the Core i7 can muster up. Also without some kind of control the user is left to wondering if the TEC controller is even working at the time it is needed most.
All is not doom and gloom for the Cooler Master V10. It is a great cooler that should be able to handle heat from the Phenom, and Core 2 series like a champ. For the price though it is a tough sale. Still with the ease of installation over a water cooling setup this is a very good alternative. With the V10 pushing air not only out of the case, but also onto the motherboard it does a great job of cooling all the way around.
The look of the V10 is one of the neatest eye catching heatsink to date. It is massive, and looks awesome inside any case with a window. Still the case will need to be able to handle that size of a heatsink. Plus with it over hanging the motherboard some taller chipset cooler are not going to play nice together. This same problem will show up with some of the RAM with taller heatspreaders out on the market today. So do some homework before you jump at the V10.
We at Ninjalane can really sit and beat up on the V10 for not being able to control a Core i7 when overclocked. Yet, with knowing that the i7 can create some incredible heat for any kind of cooling solution. This allows us to step back and admire the style and engineering gone into the Cooler Master V10 to tackle this super hot beast. To be honest not too many air cooled heatsinks are going to stand up to the Core i7, and live to tell about it. So we applaud Cooler Master on a great try.
With the engineering gone into the making of the TEC portion of the V10 we had thought this would be an awesome cooler. The tragedy is that it is only able to pull 70 Watts at its peak. This is a pretty weak amount of power compared to what the Core i7 can muster up. Also without some kind of control the user is left to wondering if the TEC controller is even working at the time it is needed most.
All is not doom and gloom for the Cooler Master V10. It is a great cooler that should be able to handle heat from the Phenom, and Core 2 series like a champ. For the price though it is a tough sale. Still with the ease of installation over a water cooling setup this is a very good alternative. With the V10 pushing air not only out of the case, but also onto the motherboard it does a great job of cooling all the way around.
The look of the V10 is one of the neatest eye catching heatsink to date. It is massive, and looks awesome inside any case with a window. Still the case will need to be able to handle that size of a heatsink. Plus with it over hanging the motherboard some taller chipset cooler are not going to play nice together. This same problem will show up with some of the RAM with taller heatspreaders out on the market today. So do some homework before you jump at the V10.
We at Ninjalane can really sit and beat up on the V10 for not being able to control a Core i7 when overclocked. Yet, with knowing that the i7 can create some incredible heat for any kind of cooling solution. This allows us to step back and admire the style and engineering gone into the Cooler Master V10 to tackle this super hot beast. To be honest not too many air cooled heatsinks are going to stand up to the Core i7, and live to tell about it. So we applaud Cooler Master on a great try.
Good Things
Easy mounting system with most modern processor sockets supported
Good cooling for the overall board and processor
Engineered with the enthusiast in mind
Very polished finished product
Easy TEC cooling for the masses
Good cooling for the overall board and processor
Engineered with the enthusiast in mind
Very polished finished product
Easy TEC cooling for the masses
Bad Things
Price is too high for the performance ratio
Needs a very strong PSU to handle the 70 Watt TEC load
Needs a larger case in order to be installed in
May conflict with larger heatspreaders on RAM modules
Needs a very strong PSU to handle the 70 Watt TEC load
Needs a larger case in order to be installed in
May conflict with larger heatspreaders on RAM modules
Ninjalane Rating
