Thermaltake V1 Cooler

We've been publishing large cooler shootouts with detailed analysis of their properties for a long time already. This approach proved itself well in practice and won the recognition of our readers: it's certainly convenient and handy to have a detailed analysis of a great many coolers, be it budget or top models. But our massive shootouts also have one not very good nuance - it's not always possible to include new products into the test procedure. So we have to choose trade-off solutions, sticking to the most popular models. This is irrelevant for budget coolers - the market of low-end cooling systems is quite slow (product lines are not updated very often). But it becomes a serious problem for the High-End sector, where new coolers come in showers almost every day.

We comply with the wishes of our inquisitive readers and understand the exigence to review interesting new products from Mid- and High-End sectors. So we start a series of brief reviews of pioneering coolers worthy of our attention. We'll start with a new product from Thermaltake with a suitable marketing name - V1.

Design

The main feature of the V1 is its garish, or even bizarre design: the field of heat pipes seems to be explored through and through, a lot of designs are engineered - from traditional tower-like heatsinks to cunning radial solutions. So it's practically impossible to invent something really innovative. But Thermaltake engineers brushed aside stereotypes, plucked up courage, and came up with a very interesting device!

Fortunately, this fancy design of the V1 also has good technical properties (problems with the Beetle taught Thermaltake people a good lesson): the working medium is formed by an imposing combination of two copper fin sections, four copper heat pipes, and a copper 36x36x5 mm base. Both sections look like fans (V-shaped profile). Each section contains 51 fins (0.2mm thick). By the way, they also have a V-shaped configuration - the fins are 8 mm wide at the base and 28 mm wide at the top. Despite its compact finning (138x70x115 mm), the total heat exchange surface area is about 4300 cm². This value would do credit even to High-End coolers. The V1 almost catches up with the Scythe Ninja, it outperforms the Zalman CNPS9500 LED and CNPS9500 AM2.

Thermaltake V1 and Zalman CNPS9500 AM2

Disposition of the on-board fan also looks interesting - it's situated in the center of finning between the two sections. This is not a new idea - this fan location is used in some coolers from ASUS and Scythe. Even Thermaltake offers the Sonic Tower cooler, which allows to install a fan in the middle. But the implementation of this idea in the V1 is much better in technical terms. Owing to this very fan-like configuration and the V-shaped fin profile, the central fan does an excellent job of blowing at the fins: the fin step in the bottom part of the heatsink is very small (1 mm), but fins are narrow there (hence the minimized hydraulic resistance); the fins are wider on top, but they are installed at the 4 mm step (resistance to the air flow is again minimal). Thus, we get a decent heat exchange ratio with a relatively weak open-frame fan owing to the geometrically balanced finning.

The only flaw in the V1 design is the way its heat pipes are connected to the finning: instead of being soldered (it's a perfect copper-to-copper solution), the heat pipes are simply glued to the fins, which is not very good. However, pipe-fin joints are pressed tightly. Besides, critical contacts between the pipes and the base are soldered. So we can actually ignore this little flaw. Besides, judging by the V1 efficiency, it does not have a noticeable negative effect on thermal resistance of the cooler.

So, we have examined the design of our cooler under review. Now let's see what the V1 can offer to its users.

Usability

Many High-End coolers from Thermaltake used to come with non-user-friendly multi-platform retention modules. We've criticized them many times. We had actually no gripes with the technical quality of this module. But its usability was sometimes very poor. It's a miracle that the V1 with its significantly improved retention module is finally easy to install!

Indeed, the V1 is much easier to install than the Silent Tower or Big Typhoon. Now you don't have to remove a motherboard from a PC case, fiddle about with mounting crossbars, and screw eight nuts with a screwdriver, in order to install this cooler on the Intel LGA775 platform. You should just screw two mounting plates with standard push-pin clips to the base and snap them into mounting holes of the socket - that's all, the V1 is all set to go! The installation process for the AMD systems is even easier. You won't even have to use a screwdriver - there is a standard mounting frame for Socket 754/939/AM2. It has a lever to fix the cooler with two notches on the socket mounting frame. That's what I call progress!

We can also mention good quality of the on-board fan - although it has a simple design (sleeve bearing), electrical part of the fan is quite good (its control circuit has smoothing capacitors). So it pops quietly, which is even unusual for Everflow models. Modders will certainly like three bright blue LEDs.

You can also connect an adjusting potentiometer to control the rotational speed from 1300 rpm to 2000 rpm. But by a strange train of events, it has become a drawback: the power cable is very short (less than 10 cm), and there are no extension cords in the bundle. So the real benefit from this controller is illusory (you cannot place it outside a PC case).

OK, now we know more or less everything about usability of the V1. It's time to proceed to the most important part of today's article - performance results of this cooler!