Cooler Master V8 GTS Review

The Build

Some cooler installations are easy, some are not so easy.  What’s the V8 like to install?  Well my old man says if you can’t say anything nice you shouldn’t say anything at all.  On this occasion though i’m going to have to make an exception.  it’s not that the fitting method itself is complicated, it’s actually quite simple, more that the sheer size of the unit should have encouraged Cooler Master to think outside the box a bit and come up with a fitting method that could be accomplished without the need to grow another wrist joint.  Ok, so things start fairly easy, with just fitting the appropriate bracket to the base plate/vapour chamber. 

    

 

Studs are then screwed into the motherboard in the case of the 2011 here, or if using anything else alternate studs pass through to a back plate.

     

 

The cooler is then placed on top of the Chip with the appropriate holes lining up with the studs on the motherboard.  Bolts are then placed on top of the studs and tightened down, first by hand then by using the supplied spanner.  And here’s where we have the problem.  Due to the large overhang and sheer bulk of the unit it’s almost impossible to place the bolt in the top left hand corner, let alone tighten it.  We were almost at the point of removing the motherboard, realising that even if we did so to fit the cooler we would then have access issues re-attaching the 8pin CPU cable and screwing down the top row of motherboard standoff location screws.  The pictures below show the fitting both with and without it’s bolt, this one corner took some 20 mins to get on and tighten.  Fortunately the Cooler Master Storm Trooper we use as our cooler test bench has quite a bit of room up top.  Had It not we think we’d have been in serious trouble.  As it was both the RAM and the rear fan had to come out to give us even the slightest chance of fitting the cooler.

     

 

The others are slightly easier to get at, but as you can see are still buried deep under the fin stacks and pipes making access interesting to say the least.  On the plus side, there’s plenty of RAM clearance.