Initial Thoughts
I’m sort of used to seeing coolers in garden variety packaging, so it was kind of a shock to see something like this. To look at it you’d think you were unboxing fine dinnerware or a hand-crafted sculpture. It really is quite fancy as far as these boxes go, and the velcro-sealed doors are a very nice addition; you know what to expect before you even attach it to your board.
Closer Look
My last heatsink review was the NiC Untouchable (the one with the big plastic shell). This is obviously going back to the traditional metal design with clip on fans. It’s no secret that I absolutely despise mucking about with these things due to poor design, BUT…and this is important: Noctua has done it right. These fan clips are the perfect size and specially designed with a little hook at both ends so they can attach easily and securely to the fans themselves. That means no more dropping them or having to hold one end with your free hand.
The look of it is pretty standard. Really the only new-ish design is the fan, which reminds me of the old plastic materials and setups they’d use in the 80’s and early 90’s on certain game consoles, phones, and various decals. I kind of like it; if for nothing else, the nostalgic feeling. But if you’re really into ornate and flashy, I’m afraid the package is the best you’re going to get.
And speaking of that, not only is all of the space used efficiently, but there’s also a ton of extra stuff that comes included with the heatsink. Noctua was kind enough to provide an extension cable, a y-splitter in case you want to add an extra fan, and two noise-level adaptor cables. And speaking of noise: I’m not really sure if you’ll ever need the aforementioned cables because the fan is virtually silent. My DVD drive always manages to drown out pretty much every other sound it could make, so that’s a good sign.
As if things couldn’t be better, the backplates come with built-in bolts so you no longer have to keep an eye on each individual bolt while attaching the bridge mounts. I can’t tell you how frustrating that is. Another thing is the also-built-in bridge plate with screws PLUS a special L-screwdriver made for handling 90-degree angles. Talk about abundance; they spare no expense. However, I had to play with the bridge screws a little before they would grab onto to the bridge mount screws, but other than that it was pretty easy going.
