External impressions

Looking from the top of the cooler we can see the top of the fan mount and shroud.

The shroud is held in place with 4 screws and 4 of the 8 vertical heatpipes.

Looking at the cooler from the side we can see that there are 4 separate sets of cooling fins. The outer sets of fins are 90 degrees to the inner sets. The fan is center mounted and solely supported from the top plate.

With the fan removed and the cooler on its side we can get a real good look at the almost crazy bends of the heatpipes. There are 2 separate pipes for each outer fin set. The inner fin sets share 4 ‘U�shape pipes.

Here is a look from the top with the fan removed.

Speaking of the fan, the fan for the V8 is a 9 blade 120mm fan. The fan also has a hard wired fan controller and 4 pin fan power connector. I would have personally liked to have seen a fan controller that wasn’t hard wired to the fan. Seeing that the fan is not wired in a typical way, replacing the fan could be interesting.

The fan is mounted to the top plate/shroud. It is clipped in place, and to help reduce noise there are foam pads between the fan and the top plate/shroud.

The base of the V8 is good, but not a mirror finish.