CoolerMaster V8 CPU Cooler Evaluation

CoolerMaster is fast becoming a regular here at Planetx64. We have had their HAF932 case (which is still one of the best cases I have ever worked with) The UCP 1100 PSU, and the GeminII S cooler. These have all be great good products and have show that CoolerMaster can put out a range of solid products.
Today we have another cooler from CoolerMaster, this time it is the V8 CPU Cooler. The V8 gets its name from having 8 heat pipes to help transfer the heat away from your CPU. Will these 8 pipes be enough? As usual ready your “left click” finger and read on.

Product: CoolerMaster V8 CPU cooler
Author: Sean Kalinich           
Category: Enthusiast          
Reviewed on: September 28th 2008
Manufacturer: CoolerMaster
Spelling and Grammatical Editors: Jason Hambly

{mospagebreak title=Packaging and Accessories}
Packaging and Accessories:
The box that V8 comes in shows promise. Is it s glossy black with artistic images of the V8, as well as embossed red lettering.

Opening the box shows the V8 itself encased in a plastic cocoon.
Inside we also find mounting hard ware for both AMD and Intel CPUs and a small tube of thermal paste.
CoolerMaster has also chosen to include a small instruction leaflet in multiple languages and for multiple CPU types. Be careful of the illustrations though, they show that you should mount the V8 with the lettering upside down in relation to the top of the board, but this puts the fan intake side at the back of any case, if you do this and you have a fan there you will have to remove or turn off that fan. I recommend installing with the lettering upright. This way any existing case fan can assist in air flow through the V8.

{mospagebreak title=Design}
Design:
As I mentioned earlier, the V8 gets its name from the fact that it uses eight heat-pipes to remove heat from the main CPU block. Theses pipe rise in pairs into four sets of cooling fins. These sets of fins crisscross each other and are located on opposite sides of a central 180mm high-air flow adjustable fan. This fan is setup to pull air in through one set of fins and blow out through the other. The fan is capped by a plastic topper with the CoolerMaster Logo and the V8 name. This cap also hides red LEDs that light up when the fan is in use. According to CoolerMaster this design will handle up to 180Watts of heat, this means (on paper at least) that it should be good enough to cool even the hottest of stock Intel and AMD CPUs.

After taking a close look at the V8, the design (to me) looks a little ungainly; the crossing of the cooling fins gives the impression  it will impede airflow in addition the central fan will be pulling in cool air but blowing hot air out. All of these factors would seem to make a very inefficient design, but as they say looks can be deceiving so we won’t know for sure until we put it on the grill.
Installation is exactly the same as the GeminII S

{mospagebreak title=Performance}
Performance:
For testing I used the same setup and CPU as in the GeminII S cooler evaluation.
Temperatures shown are the highs for idle, and each type of CPU load. I did not note the minimum or average temps as they are not what is going to kill your CPU it is that Maximum temp spike that will do the job. Ambient temperature was 27.5c.
For CPU load I used HyperPi 0.99b, AutoGK 2.45, Lightwave 9.3 x64 and Lost Planet DX10.
I also used multiple temperature applications to read the CPU temps:
RealTemp – Core0/Core1
CoreTemp – Core0/Core1
Asus AI Suite – Die Temp as a single reading.
Since the V8 is adjustable I also recorded the peak temps with fan set to high, medium and at its lowest setting.

The Test System
Intel C2D E8400 (WolfDale)
Asus P5Q Deluxe
Mushkin XP2-8500 4GB DDR2-1066 (2x2GB)
Asus EAH3850 Smart OC
Western Digital RaptorX 150GB HDD
CoolerMaster 850Watt PSU (RS-850-EMBA)
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate x64

Idle temps were logged after the system was powered on and sitting for 45 minutes.

As you can see the V8 handily out cools both the stock Intel cooler and the GeminII S.

Load Testing:
HyperPi 0.99b
HyperPi was used as it is able to push both CPU cores up to 100% and keep them there for extended periods. I ran dual 32M runs and recorded peak temps.

The V8 takes the prize here, granted not by much and only with the fan on high but it still runs better.

AutoGK
AutoGK was used to transcode a full 2 hour movie from DVD source to Xvid at 100% quality; again maximum temps were recorded during the Transcoding.

Again we see the V8 win, this time it manages to keep the Transcoding temps under the GeminII S and Stock Intel even with the fan on low.

Lightwave 9.3 x64
For my Lightwave load testing I rendered frame 32 of the moonbase scene (found on the Lightwave 8 content CD1) I used a resolution of 1920×1080 (1080i HD), a 7-Pass PLD AA filter and a Guassian Sharp reconstruction filter; as with all other tests maximum temperatures were recorded.

Again the V8 manages to outperform the other coolers.

Gaming:
For gaming I only used one game but it is one of the few that was developed from the ground up for multi-core CPUs and also have DX10 support. I ran through about 45 minutes of gaming in Lost planet at 1600×1050 resolution 2x AA and 16x AF. I played on the hardest difficulty level for maximum CPU usage.

As with the other stock tests the V8 manages to cool the E8400 more efficiently.

{mospagebreak title=Overclocking}
Overclocking:
As with the GeminII S I did not really overclock the CPU but bumped the voltage up to 1.4v And the FSB up to 400MHz I feel that with the temps I saw you would even be good with a dual core running at up to 1.45v

The V8 does not get saturated as easily as the GeminII S did, this enables better temps while overclocked in fact my temps were below that the GeminII S had at a lower voltage.

{mospagebreak title=Conclusion}
Conclusion:
When I first saw the V8 I had my doubts about its ability to cool a CPU at all, I was concerned that it would be another GeminII S and look good but not work as well as some of the claims on the box.
After working with it and running it through its paces though I found that it is more than capable of cooling your CPU. I also feel that you would not have any problems running this on a Quad at stock and with a minor OC. CoolerMaster has put out a great tower air cooler with the V8 and one I am sure will make it into many Air Cooling enthusiasts Systems.

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