Date: September 17th, 2007
Article by: Joe Anderson (Hardware Reviewer)
Edited by: Nathan Glentworth (Owner / Head Editor)
Product was submitted by: Thermalright
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PRODUCT PICTORIAL AND WALKTHROUGH (cont'd)
The baseplate, with integral mounting arms, is machined from a single piece of copper and soldered to the main body. The heatpipes are sandwiched between these components and there is a lot of contact area here. This looks to be a very efficient design. The base finish doesn't have a mirror finish, but its surface is dead flat and should provide good performance.
The hardware consists of wire fan clips, memory heatsinks, double-threaded screws, washers and thumbnuts. We'll take a closer look at these items during installation, but what's obvious here is that the mounting solution is elegant in its simplicity. I like simple. For example, there are only two clips required for mounting a fan to the V2. The short clips are for 80 x 15 mm fans while the other two will hold 80 x 25 mm fans.
PRODUCT INSTALLATION AND TESTING
For this review, we'll be installing the V2 on my EVGA 7900 GS-KO graphics card. It's listed as compatible in the chart, so I expect no issues during installation. After gathering all the parts and the appropriate installation guide, we can begin.
The first order of business is to remove the OEM cooling solution and clean the chips with alcohol. The stock cooler incorporates copper into its design and does a pretty good job, but is quite noisy. The ramsinks are a simple peel-and-stick operation, but you need to pay attention. Some low-profile ‘sinks are included for heatpipe clearance. After applying some AS5 to the GPU, we can install the V2.
After selecting the correct mounting holes, the double-threaded screws go on next. The softer, black washers can then be placed over the long ends of the screws.
The card can then be placed over the screws. With the hard, white washers in place, the thumbnuts can be tightened down to secure the V2. Installation is now complete, and was accomplished quickly and easily.
The V2 has a very low installed height, but this will almost double…
