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New Graphics Card Cooling Solution from Cooler Master: CoolViva Pro Review (page 2)

Category: Coolers

by Sergey Lepilov

[ 03/12/2007 | 10:12 AM ]

Design and Functionality

This is what the Cooler Master CoolViva Pro looks like:

It is a rather large cooler at 178.5 x 130 x 41mm (length x height x depth). The translucent plastic casing covers an aluminum heatsink and directs airflow from a small blower (74mm in diameter). There are stickers with the cooler’s name and the manufacturer logo on the casing and on the blower, respectively.

Here is the reverse side of the CoolViva Pro:

The cooler’s heatsink turns out to be not as large as you might guess from the dimensions of the whole system. This aluminum heatsink has a copper sole with three copper heat pipes (flattened out a little) that distribute the heat flow in the heatsink ribbing.

The heatsink is 145 x 112 x 38mm large:

The ribs are soldered to the bottom aluminum plate and to the pipes. The ends of the ribs meet in two points at the top, probably to make the heatsink more rigid.

The copper base of the heatsink is protected with a piece of polyethylene film. Don’t forget to remove it before installing the cooler. The finish quality and the flatness of the base (verified by the trace of thermal grease on the GPU) are perfect:

The area of the 25x25mm base totals 625 sq. mm, so I doubt the CoolViva Pro should be installed on GeForce 8800 series cards and, perhaps, on R600-based ones because they have GPUs with large heat-spreaders. On the other hand, Nvidia’s GeForce 8800 GTS and GTX are on the list of graphics cards supported by the CoolViva Pro.

The new cooler’s heatsink is cooled by a blower that is located in the top part of the plastic casing.