Cooler Master V10 Heatsink Review

All types of computer user today seem to want to push there system beyond the normal specs in hope if saving some coin, or just for the pure rush of it. With this kind of pushing of the envelope the CPU will create a bunch more heat than the normal OEM heatsink can handle. So Cooler Master responded with a few new heatsinks to combat the heat of overclocking. The one Ninjalane will be looking at is much more than just a regular heatpipe tower style heatsink. We are looking at the Cooler Master V10 heatsink that also has a TEC setup on it.

The Cooler Master V10 is a huge heatsink that not only is a tower style, but is kind of a hybrid with a portion of the heatsink overlapping the ram area on a motherboard. With two large 120mm red LED fans, and a cool looking black shroud to encase the heatsink the Cooler Master V10 has lots of character. The biggest character though it is TEC portion of the cooler. The TEC takes a current of electricity, and converts the heat on one side of a plate to cold while the other side becomes hot. It is kind of tough to explain but we will get deeper into with the pictures to give a better idea.

Let's get into this review, and see what makes the V10 tick.

The Cooler Master V10 is an aluminum heatsink with a very rugged looking black plastic shroud. Under the shroud is 3 separate heatsinks 2 x vertical and 1 x horizontal in the setup.

Flipping the Cooler Master V10 shows off many of the cool features that it has to offer. First looking at the base we see an almost mirror like finish that is very smooth. Then working our way up or even down however you look at it. There is a total of 10 6mm heatpipes stemming from the base of the Cooler Master V10. 4 of the heatpipes are rolling out to the horizontal heatsink. Then 2 heatpipes are moving up to one of the vertical heatsinks, and 4 more heatpipes running up off the TEC cooler portion of the V10.

The part of the Cooler Master V10 that makes it tick, and makes it a unique cooler among the sea of heatsinks is the TEC. The Thermal Electric Cooler or some may call it a Peltier is the part of the V10 that makes it a step beyond the normal huge heatsink. The TEC portion of the V10 converters a current of electricity into a piece of copper to create a cold plate on one side while using the other side to displace the heat from the electricity. The V10 is able to use the TEC to remove over 70 Watts of heat from the cooler. This helps the V10 withstand the extreme heat of some processors.

Here we are looking at the cold plate sandwiched between two groups of heatpipes. The set of heatpipes below the plate getting a helping from the cold plate part to keep them cool while also keeping the processor cool. The two U-shaped heatpipes on top that get counted as four are used to draw away the heat from the hot side of the plate.

Cooler Master is also thinking a little green like all manufactures, and has decided to make this TEC driven heatsink a little more responsible. The TEC does not come alive and start working till a certain temperature is hit on the V10. So lots of the cooling goodness is from the heatsink portion of the V10 for the most part. Until the extreme heat starts to push the V10 past its regular cooling capacity and makes the V10 go into TEC mode.