Final Thoughts and Conclusion

 

The Thermaltake V1 CPU Cooler has style, elegance, and blue LED’s. Mmm… Blue LED’s… It’s built with such style and artistic flair that it almost looks better just sitting on your mantle. Initially, we were concerned with the performance of such a “pretty” heatsink.  However, based on the numbers we gathered from our testing, the cooler definitely beats up a stock AMD cooler, making it worth coveting if you are looking for something that is just a little different from the norm. Although the V1 definitely puts up numbers to go with its unique looks, it wasn’t without some faults. 

 

For example, our installation took a frustrating ten minutes. The difficulties were caused by the included AMD cradle clip and the fact that it was not attached to the heatsink, leading it to just dangle around during install, making it difficult to line it up to clamp it down. As mentioned earlier, a bit of torquing and twisting was required to get it straightened into place. With the V1 already being nearly double the weight of the stock AMD cooler, this could only put more torque on the plastic cradle that the heatsink is attached to. Add to that a fragile but elegant heatsink design, and you could be looking at one beat up looking heatsink after an install. Bent and seperated fins aren’t so pretty anymore.

Usually, high performance coolers use a beefed up mounting system, but the trade off would be the fact that the V1 does not require removal of the motherboard to install. These issues don’t exist with the included INTEL clips however as they bolt to the V1 slightly outboard and self align to the stock mounting holes on the motherboard. The fan adjustment was a welcome addition, but unfortunately, the addition did little to improve thermal performance. It just got louder.

Overall, the Thermaltake V1′s performance definitely stands up for itself.  However, the issues with the AMD CPU installation took it down a couple notches for me. If you’ve got an INTEL CPU, then the V1 should install as easily as a stock cooler backed up with solid performance and a truly unique look…blue LED’s included…

Pros

• Very unique design looks great through a clear side window
• Substantially improved cooling performance over stock AMD cooler
• No need to remove motherboard to install
• Blue LED’s anyone?

Cons

• The arts fartsy design is a bit fragile
• The AMD bracket is finicky and hard to install squarely
• Fan controller does very little to improve performance on highest setting

Overall Rating: 8.5 / 10.0

Discuss This Review in the Futurelooks Community Forums

Real-Time Price and Stock Check – Shop Like a PRO!