Date: October 20th, 2008
Article by: Joe Anderson (Hardware Reviewer)
Edited by: Nathan Glentworth (Owner / Head Editor)
Product was submitted by:
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PRODUCT PICTORIAL AND WALKTHROUGH
Creative bending, along with a slight angle of the base holes allows enough room for the eight ‘pipes. A significant part of the weight of the V8 is concentrated in the massive base. The ‘pipes appear to be soldered to the base, but the nickel plating makes this hard to discern.
The base is extremely flat, but lacks the highly polished finish I was expecting from some of the literature I'd seen. However, the finish is perfectly acceptable and, with the addition of some thermal compound, will provide good heat transfer.
The mounting hardware provides the wide compatibility and is very similar, with a few improvements, to the mounting solution of another huge Cooler Master product, the GeminII. For both Intel and AMD platforms, the motherboard will need to be removed and, for AMD boards, the retention bracket and backplate will have to be replaced with the Cooler Master items. Both backplates are nicely insulated and robust enough to support the immense V8. An expansion slot cover is included to mount the fan control rheostat at the rear of the case. Let's get the instruction sheet out and get this V8 installed.
PRODUCT INSTALLATION AND TESTING
The instruction sheet Cooler Master provides will get you through the installation process, but it's not the clearest user's guide I've seen. The pictures are a bit small and the eighteen languages represented make its sheer size a bit unwieldy. With the mounting screws in the bracket (left-hand thread) it can be secured to the base with the four flat-head screws. Soft rubber washers are then applied and…
…on the motherboard it goes. Cooler Master supplies a driver to help secure the hard plastic washers and nuts on the backplate. With these nuts fully tightened, we're ready to go. Installing the V8 is fussier than many other coolers, but there is nothing too difficult about it. I would have liked to see the screws just a wee bit longer to get the mounting nuts started more easily, but that's about all I can find to complain about. The mount is very, very strong and keeps the V8 rigidly attached to the mobo, but I would remove a cooler this heavy before transporting the computer in a car, for instance.
Man, that's a big V8! As you can see, the test mule case is just a little too shallow to support the V8. There is no way that the side panel would go on without a noticeable bulge in this area.
