X-bit labs

Originality or Efficiency? Cooler Master Mars, Eclipse and Hyper TX Cooling Solutions Reviewed (page 7)

Category: Coolers

by Sergey Lepilov

[ 12/15/2006 | 10:47 AM ]

The cooler’s sole is not protected with polyethylene because a layer of thick gray thermal grease lies on it. If you remove it, you’ll see the following picture:

The quality of the base can hardly satisfy an overclocker:

But the soldering of the heat pipes was made very conscientiously:

The LGA775 version of the cooler had a flat base, but the other version – intended for Socket 754/939/940/AM2 systems – had a curved-in base and left a trace with a blank spot right in the center.

You can’t have any installation-related troubles with these coolers as this procedure is simple and intuitive. You use an ordinary clip for Socket 754/939/940/AM2 that resembles the clip included with the Eclipse and is to be hitched on the socket’s retention frame. To mount the cooler on an LGA775 processor, you should use fixing nails like with Intel’s boxed CPUs.

Here is how this looks inside a system case:

On the ASUS P5B Deluxe/WiFi-AP mainboard the plastic casing drives the air stream right to the copper heatsink installed on the components of the CPU power circuit. That is, the cooler is a perfect match for this mainboard model.

The mounting holes around Socket LGA775 are placed in the corners of a square, so there are no problems with orienting the Hyper TX on an Intel platform. As for platforms for K8 processors, you can orient the cooler in the best possible position if the holes run in parallel to the rear panel of the case.