OCZ Vindicator CPU Cooler

Introduction:

The CPU market has thoroughly heated up, yet the processors have cooled down with each fabrication process. Manufacturers of CPU Coolers tend to develop their designs to work across several different processors and sockets. As of late, I noticed that many forum posts have stated they feel that there aren't any good or better CPU coolers for the Core 2 Duo and top AMD dual core processors. There may be a lot of cross compatible coolers from older models, but there has definitely been a lack of big performers up till this past month.

There have been a couple new CPU coolers released that are specifically aimed at dual core processors. Performance hasn't been really aggressive for the most part. Up until the Ultra-X, there wasn't a good extreme performer that could take a beating. Quad Core cooling is very limited as well, but we will get more coolers aimed especially for those. Till then, we have the OCZ Vindicator Ultra High Performance CPU Cooler which will be added to the lineup for dual cores. Join me for a look at the Vindicator and have a look to see if it's an actual Ultra Performer.


Specifications:

The Vindicator

Closer Look:

When I first saw the Vindicator box, I thought for sure there was a really large heavy CPU cooler inside. The package is about 9 inches long, 8 inches tall, and 6 inches wide with the Vindicator tucked away inside allowing 1 inch of space on all sides. So, the cooler is quite big with the fan attached. The surprising thing is that OCZ Vindicator weighs very, very little compared to something like Zalman's 9500 series. As a matter of fact, it's about half the weight which is pretty awesome in one respect.

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Features

Specifications

Applications

There aren't many new design or fabrication features that we haven't seen before. But, there is one similar feature that the Ultra-X utilizes. There is a lower solid chrome heat sink that is centered directly over the copper base which is flat and clean, but doesn't have a polished surface. This passive idea is a tried and true design, otherwise motherboard companies wouldn't even try to use them on their very hot chipsets. Any extra cooling capacity is worth the investment in my book.

Left

Right

Back

Side

The heat pipes and copper base are pretty well made with a decent brazened finish. And speaking of heat pipes, there are twelve of them that extend the entire height of the heat sink on all four sides which are then capped with chrome polished bolts. The bolts match the polished chrome top fin that have a very cool looking 'Z' cut in to every fin down the entire heat sink. This is actually pretty cool looking and an original look. Each fin has clipped corners so that you can mount the 120mm fan on any of the four sides.

Chrome Plated 'Z' Fin

All of these thinner and lighter materials than the typical gauge you are use to have a down side. You have to be a little more conservative with your handling of the Vindicator or you risk bending one of the aluminum fins. While moving the cooler around for pictures and during installation, the fins would become a little unaligned. On the up side, you can easily move them back in to position as long as the bends aren't too excessive.

Left/Right Fan Wires

Pipes, Fins, 3pin Wire

Copper Base

Intel & AMD

OCZ chose to go with a very quiet 120mm fan to cool the Vindicator. It's a 40CFM fan rated to about 19db which is very quiet and worthy of a quiet computer system if you need this feature. Also included is some standard white thermal paste. It's nothing like Artic Silver 5 which is would be a very nice thing to have. Even if it were a small amount enough to cover one or two installations of the CPU cooler. There have been proven results when using a better thermal paste over a generic kind.