Soldato
Hi guys,
Around 18 months ago I reviewed the Zalman GTX 480 GPU Cooler. This cooler was quite good. As I've had a a GTX 580 for quite some time now, and with the recent release of the Prolimatech MK-26 Graphics Card Cooler that I would write up another review.
Firstly the GTX 480 stock cooler was one of the loudest coolers ever! The GTX 580 stock cooler is loud, but not as bad as the GTX 480. Either way both needed taming!
Initial Thoughts
I opened the box of the MK-26 and thought this is just massive, upon taking the cooler out of the box, I was pleasantly surprised at how light weight it actually was compared to the size. Compared to other GPU coolers this MK26 admittedly doesn't have a shroud around the bulk of the heatsink, but this gives it a great 'raw' appeal to me. My build is very much themed with a white theme (link is in my signature) so a simple silver design is great and works, unlike some other aftermarket coolers which are green/red/blue etc.
This cooler I noticed did have seperate VRM chip heatsinks and this is to enable a great big compatibility list
Installation
Firstly I took my old GPU out of my PC
I removed the 'MASS' of screws. You do need a very small star shaped screwdriver head to remove a GTX 580 cooler (and some other coolers). I removed all of the screws. There were quite a few.
I then installed the foam padding for the backplate to the Gaphics card.
I then installed the cable splitter for the fan power, this must be done prior to the main heatsink being fitted or you cannot get to the fan header port.
Then I removed all the sticky pad remains from the VRM and RAM chips and removed the thermal paste from the GPU chip. All quite easy.
Next was to start installing the new cooler. First job was to stick the new heatsink VRM and RAM chips to the card. The long strip of VRM heatsinks were easy to fit and stuck quite easily. However the first one I did pull the backing strip for the sticky tape, and a small piece of the sticky glue did start to peel slightly, I had to push it back down to ensure that the heatsink would stick. Then I pushed the heatsink on and it gripped well.
Then on to the RAM chips heatsinks I removed the backing to the sticky tape, these didn't pull of the glue which was better, however the backing to the tape was that shiny material which curls up and as I peel each one off it stuck to my fingers and was fiddly to completely remove and put into the bin. As the static meant it kept sticking to my fingers lol.
Anyway the heatsinks were easy to fit to the chips.
Next job was to install the brackets to the main GPU heatsink block, this was very easy and had a tiny ball which fitted into a hole on the side of the heatsink plate. 2 screws for each side and bang fitted nice and easily.
Then I had to flip the GPU card over and position the back plate on the card and push the spring screws threw the four holes. This was a bit of a pain, as when I flipped the card over two of the RAM heatsinks fell off. They were not 'well secured' I quickly screwed the 4 screws from the backplate into the brackets on the GPU chip heatsink, it felt very very secure. I then flipped the card back over and pushed the RAM sinks back onto the card.
Next job was to install the fans. I choose the Bitfenix Spectre Pro PWM 140mm fans for two reasons. Number one was due to my whole build being based on a Bitfenix Colossus case in white and the bitfenix fans were white, and reason number two is that this fan is the best price vs performance fan available from the 4 bundle products we have created.
The GPU cooler is supplied with 4 fan clips, two for each fan, they were extremely easy to clip in and gripped the fans very well; almost as if the clips were made for this fan. I don't know if any other fans would have issues with the clip design. No idea! I have a feeling that a few may. But thats just a hunch.
After fitting the two fans I thought to myself 'bloody hell this thing is massive' and it was. Then I picked up the whole GPU with cooler attached; it was much heavier now than when the stock cooler was fitted, it felt very solid and the fans were secure.
I then popped the GPU back into my PC and I noticed the card does 'bend' slightly more than it did with the stock cooler, but is still not too heavy that it will damage the card.
What I did notice was that the fans do stick out way more than the card, so if you do purchase one of these, ensure your case actually has the room for the fans to fit.
I then turned the PC on and the two heatsinks fell off again and landed on the fins of the cooling pipes, I had to push them back on the RAM chips and hold them in place with one hand whilst running a GPU intense app to heat up the RAM chips which in turned heated up the glue and made it 're-stick'. I hope that they don't ever fall off again. I would even suggest having some spare thermal tape to help incase they lose their stickyness. I will be honest and the heatsinks on the Zalman cooler from my old GTX 480 was better as it was 1 long heatsink block but resulted in only fitting one or two graphics cards. The bigger thickness of the heatsink with fans does mean that you cannot install anything into the next PCI-E slot as the cooler does cover up the space. Not a problem for me, as I don't intend on ever running dual graphics cards.
Performance
I ran the Furmark burn in test using the stock cooler. The GPU quickly hit 80 degrees, and within 5 mins hit 85 degrees, it slowly increased to 88/89 degrees at around 12mins, after that there was no further increases. (total of 20mins)
The same test with the MK-26 the burn in test on furmark resulted in the card starting at 45 degrees, and then within 30seconds it when up to 55 degrees, then it dropped back to 51 degrees at around 1 min. At 5 mins it stabilised at around 54 degrees and then it slowly increased to 56 degress at the 10 min mark and after that there were no further increases. (total of 20mins)
Heaven Benchmarks with MSI afterburner for temps (only the temps are important)
The settings I used was:-
Stock cooler
MK26 cooler
So you can see a drop in temps of 26 degrees, which is pretty awesome!
Noise
I cannot give you any evidence of the noise, but as any body with a stock cooler on any flagship GTX series Nvidia card will know that they can sound like a hair drier. But with the MK26, the noise of course does depend upon the fans used, as the card doesn't come with any fans, you have to purchase those separately, but we have created some bundles. These are very quiet indeed. The Spectre Pro 140mm Fans are amazingly quiet as they are primarily a case fan, but I'm extremely happy with the results.
Pro's
- Amazing cooling performance
- Way quieter than any standard cooler
- Allows you to co-ordinate with any fan colour/style you choose
- Big list of compatible cards
- Installation only took 20mins from start to finish
Con's
- The VRM heatsinks can be a pain, and can fall off.
- Quite heavy compared to stock coolers
- The added length when using two 140mm fans may cause issues with some smaller cases; but 120mm fans can be used instead
- Takes up 3 Expansion Slots.
Around 18 months ago I reviewed the Zalman GTX 480 GPU Cooler. This cooler was quite good. As I've had a a GTX 580 for quite some time now, and with the recent release of the Prolimatech MK-26 Graphics Card Cooler that I would write up another review.
Firstly the GTX 480 stock cooler was one of the loudest coolers ever! The GTX 580 stock cooler is loud, but not as bad as the GTX 480. Either way both needed taming!
Initial Thoughts
I opened the box of the MK-26 and thought this is just massive, upon taking the cooler out of the box, I was pleasantly surprised at how light weight it actually was compared to the size. Compared to other GPU coolers this MK26 admittedly doesn't have a shroud around the bulk of the heatsink, but this gives it a great 'raw' appeal to me. My build is very much themed with a white theme (link is in my signature) so a simple silver design is great and works, unlike some other aftermarket coolers which are green/red/blue etc.
This cooler I noticed did have seperate VRM chip heatsinks and this is to enable a great big compatibility list
Installation
Firstly I took my old GPU out of my PC
I removed the 'MASS' of screws. You do need a very small star shaped screwdriver head to remove a GTX 580 cooler (and some other coolers). I removed all of the screws. There were quite a few.
I then installed the foam padding for the backplate to the Gaphics card.
I then installed the cable splitter for the fan power, this must be done prior to the main heatsink being fitted or you cannot get to the fan header port.
Then I removed all the sticky pad remains from the VRM and RAM chips and removed the thermal paste from the GPU chip. All quite easy.
Next was to start installing the new cooler. First job was to stick the new heatsink VRM and RAM chips to the card. The long strip of VRM heatsinks were easy to fit and stuck quite easily. However the first one I did pull the backing strip for the sticky tape, and a small piece of the sticky glue did start to peel slightly, I had to push it back down to ensure that the heatsink would stick. Then I pushed the heatsink on and it gripped well.
Then on to the RAM chips heatsinks I removed the backing to the sticky tape, these didn't pull of the glue which was better, however the backing to the tape was that shiny material which curls up and as I peel each one off it stuck to my fingers and was fiddly to completely remove and put into the bin. As the static meant it kept sticking to my fingers lol.
Anyway the heatsinks were easy to fit to the chips.
Next job was to install the brackets to the main GPU heatsink block, this was very easy and had a tiny ball which fitted into a hole on the side of the heatsink plate. 2 screws for each side and bang fitted nice and easily.
Then I had to flip the GPU card over and position the back plate on the card and push the spring screws threw the four holes. This was a bit of a pain, as when I flipped the card over two of the RAM heatsinks fell off. They were not 'well secured' I quickly screwed the 4 screws from the backplate into the brackets on the GPU chip heatsink, it felt very very secure. I then flipped the card back over and pushed the RAM sinks back onto the card.
Next job was to install the fans. I choose the Bitfenix Spectre Pro PWM 140mm fans for two reasons. Number one was due to my whole build being based on a Bitfenix Colossus case in white and the bitfenix fans were white, and reason number two is that this fan is the best price vs performance fan available from the 4 bundle products we have created.
The GPU cooler is supplied with 4 fan clips, two for each fan, they were extremely easy to clip in and gripped the fans very well; almost as if the clips were made for this fan. I don't know if any other fans would have issues with the clip design. No idea! I have a feeling that a few may. But thats just a hunch.
After fitting the two fans I thought to myself 'bloody hell this thing is massive' and it was. Then I picked up the whole GPU with cooler attached; it was much heavier now than when the stock cooler was fitted, it felt very solid and the fans were secure.
I then popped the GPU back into my PC and I noticed the card does 'bend' slightly more than it did with the stock cooler, but is still not too heavy that it will damage the card.
What I did notice was that the fans do stick out way more than the card, so if you do purchase one of these, ensure your case actually has the room for the fans to fit.
I then turned the PC on and the two heatsinks fell off again and landed on the fins of the cooling pipes, I had to push them back on the RAM chips and hold them in place with one hand whilst running a GPU intense app to heat up the RAM chips which in turned heated up the glue and made it 're-stick'. I hope that they don't ever fall off again. I would even suggest having some spare thermal tape to help incase they lose their stickyness. I will be honest and the heatsinks on the Zalman cooler from my old GTX 480 was better as it was 1 long heatsink block but resulted in only fitting one or two graphics cards. The bigger thickness of the heatsink with fans does mean that you cannot install anything into the next PCI-E slot as the cooler does cover up the space. Not a problem for me, as I don't intend on ever running dual graphics cards.
Performance
I ran the Furmark burn in test using the stock cooler. The GPU quickly hit 80 degrees, and within 5 mins hit 85 degrees, it slowly increased to 88/89 degrees at around 12mins, after that there was no further increases. (total of 20mins)
The same test with the MK-26 the burn in test on furmark resulted in the card starting at 45 degrees, and then within 30seconds it when up to 55 degrees, then it dropped back to 51 degrees at around 1 min. At 5 mins it stabilised at around 54 degrees and then it slowly increased to 56 degress at the 10 min mark and after that there were no further increases. (total of 20mins)
Heaven Benchmarks with MSI afterburner for temps (only the temps are important)
The settings I used was:-
Stock cooler
MK26 cooler
So you can see a drop in temps of 26 degrees, which is pretty awesome!
Noise
I cannot give you any evidence of the noise, but as any body with a stock cooler on any flagship GTX series Nvidia card will know that they can sound like a hair drier. But with the MK26, the noise of course does depend upon the fans used, as the card doesn't come with any fans, you have to purchase those separately, but we have created some bundles. These are very quiet indeed. The Spectre Pro 140mm Fans are amazingly quiet as they are primarily a case fan, but I'm extremely happy with the results.
Pro's
- Amazing cooling performance
- Way quieter than any standard cooler
- Allows you to co-ordinate with any fan colour/style you choose
- Big list of compatible cards
- Installation only took 20mins from start to finish
Con's
- The VRM heatsinks can be a pain, and can fall off.
- Quite heavy compared to stock coolers
- The added length when using two 140mm fans may cause issues with some smaller cases; but 120mm fans can be used instead
- Takes up 3 Expansion Slots.
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