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CoolerMaster Vortex 752


Date
: 08/15/07 – 04:41:48 AM

Author
:

Category
: Cooling

Page 1 : Index

Manufacturer:
CoolerMaster

Price:
$24.95 US

CoolerMaster needs no introduction, they have been creating quality computer products for about a decade now. From cases to heatsinks they have always put out quality products.

CoolerMaster has been quite busy releasing new products, and today I am taking a look at one of their newest cooling solutions. The CoolerMaster Vortex 752 is a heatsink designed with the home theater or small form factor PC crowd in mind. Let's move on to find out exactly what this heatsink has in store.

Page 2 : Package and Specifications

CoolerMaster always has a clean package, and the Vortex 752 is no exception.

The packaging should be familiar to anyone that has seen any CoolerMaster product. On the front you get a nice view of the clear fan on the Vortex 752. At the bottom you can see right away that the Vortex 752 supports both the Intel Core 2 Quad and AMD AM2 processors out of the same package. To the right of that we see that it produces a near silent 18 dBa.

On the back you have a clear view of the bottom of the heatsink. Also notice the small pocket at the bottom of the package as this holds all of the installation hardware. On the top of the back you can see a more detailed listing of specifications. Below is a listing straight from CoolerMaster's website with the specifications.

Notice again the fan speed ranges from 800 to 2200 rpm, I'm fairly certain at those speeds the fan will live up (or down I guess) to the 18 dBa of sound. Since the Vortex is aimed squarely at small form factor PCs and home theater PCs, this is an important feature. The last thing you are going to want to hear is the whine of a fan while watching a movie.

Page 3 : Contents

First let's look at the heatsink itself.

Taking a look from the top down, you can see the fan is made of clear plastic. In the four corners are the rubber connectors that hold the fan onto the heatsink. These hold the fan on solid and leave little movement to help reduce noise and vibration.

A look from the side reveals that the fan is attached to a sort of shroud that sits over the top of the heatsink. Again you can see the rubber connectors holding the fan in place. Also you can see the vertical slits that line around the fan body. This allows air to blow out and over surrounding components on the motherboard while mounted, allowing additional cooling.

I removed the bracket from the heatsink to get a closer look. It is held on by four tabs that snap into a groove on the heatsink. I can't really see any way to remove the fan without breaking the rubber connectors. However as was noted in the specs earlier, with a life expectancy of around 40,000 hours, you will probably be upgrading to a new socket type before the fan needs to be replaced.

The fan has a four pin connector to utilize the PWM feature if your motherboard supports it.

Here you can see that towards the end of the fins that cool the heatpipes, the surface angles down slightly. At first I thought this was a defect, but looking at the pictures on CoolerMaster's website I could see the heatsink is made this way. I'm honestly not sure why it was made this way, but I would assume the engineers had their reasons.

Here you can see where the two heatpipes go from the base of the heatsink to the cooling fins along the top. The notches on either side of the cooling fins are where the fan shroud clips onto the heatsink.

A look at the other end of the heatsink, it is nice to see no gaps where the heatpipes connect with the heatsink.

Looking at the base of the heatsink shows a finish that is flat, but not smooth. While the differences in temperatures can be minor, it would be nice to see a somewhat smoother surface. The four holes you see at the sides are for the LGA775 mounting bracket.

Here is a shot of the mounting hardware and instructions included. Starting on the left is the AMD mounting clip, bag of screws/washers/etc and the Intel LGA775 mounting brackets. I will touch more on these items during installation.

I know it is something small, but it's little things like this that really impress me. CoolerMaster included a socket that allows you to use a screwdriver to tighten the nuts for the LGA775 bracket. A small thing as just about everyone has a screwdriver around, but a lot of people may not have the proper size socket.

Page 4 : Installation

I do not have an Intel machine, but first I want to touch on the LGA775 mounting bracket

Four little screws are used to secure the two brackets to the heatsink. After this you simply mount the heatsink using antivibrational and insulation pads that will further help reduce the noise produced. This is also where the included 'socket' would be used.

Now to move along to the socket 939 mounting procedure.

The first step is to insert this metal plate, as seen in the top of the photo, into the slot on the heatsink as shown on the bottom.

Next you simply slide the clip into those same grooves and you are ready to go.

Installation was uneventful and amounted to just lining up the notches and simply flipping the lever. Doesn't get much easier than that and it is very similar to the clips on stock coolers that come with the AMD processors. As you can see the Vortex 752's footprint is pretty small, an important factor for small form factor or home theater PCs.

It does sit rather close to the memory and is something to keep in mind with the layout of your motherboard, although it doesn't really pose a problem on mine.

An issue I came across had to do with the four pin fan cable. My motherboard does not have a four pin fan header and just so happens that there is a capacitor right next to the CPU fan header. I do have another fan header right next to it I can use, but I decided to connect the fan straight to a 4 pin molex connector using an adapter.

Everything installed and ready to go. Time to run it through some tests to see how it performs.

Page 5 : Testing

Following is the system used for testing:

The first thing I noticed when I started up my PC was the noise, at first I thought it was the Vortex, but after further investigation it's basically all the other fans in my system that I couldn't hear before. I can assure you won't notice this fan in a HTPC.

We know it is quiet, now let's see how it performs. Up first we take a look at temperatures at stock settings

The Vortex pretty much matches up with the stock Opteron cooler and the Evercool Buffalo. Pretty impressive when you consider the Vortex only uses two heatpipes compared to the four heatpipes of the others. Not too shabby and about in line with how I thought it should perform. Now on to the overclocked results.

Again results here pretty much match the results at stock settings. While I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving my rig running at these temps 24/7 they are pretty good considering the size and noise level of the Vortex. The Vortex isn't sold as an overclocking enthusiast heatsink, so I'm not too concerned with these results. These temperatures are still within the recommended limits and the Vortex does this all with near silence.

Page 6 : Conclusion

Once again CoolerMaster has released a solid product. The Vortex 752 does everything it sets out to do, cool your processor silently and with a small footprint for your HTPC or small form factor PC. It has a few minor faults that are really none of its own, but depend solely on your motherboards layout. So if you are looking for a silent fan to keep media center PC cool, you can't go wrong with CoolerMaster's Vortex 752.

Positives

• Quiet

• Low profile
• Universal compatability

Negatives

[list><li]Some possible clearance issues[/list]

Overclockers Online would like to thank CoolerMaster for supplying the Vortex 752 for review.