Techaddicts.net-Cooler Master HAC-V81 "X-Dream" Review

By: Jose Rubio

Date: 2/1/03

Provided By: CoolerMaster Inc.

The CoolerMaster HAC-V81 cooler is one of the most unique and versatile coolers I have ever seen. It is a Cooler from the retail side of CoolerMaster, the first cooler of the"X-Dream" series. Taking a simple glance, the cooler is pretty large, the dimensions are 80 x 69 x 45mm. It isn't a full copper heatsink, so motherboard stress wont be a problem as it is not heavy. If you ever visited CoolerMaster's website, you would see "So Quiet, Strong Wind" commercial of the HAC-V81, which is still posted. At that time, we would just think what CoolerMaster is trying to design, something radical? conventional? futuristic?. Well, as soon as I saw the HAC-V81, I was quite impressed by it's look. A custom X grill on the top, 80 mm green fan with rheostat on a pci slot, embedded copper cylinder, and a backflow adapter. If you take a closer look, you will see that the fan has rifle bearings, which enable a longer life, I'm not aware of any noise reduction though. In general, this is a very original heatsink. Let's take a closer look:

From these photos, you can see the largeness of the cooler. This is definitely no ordinary cooler. The X grille is a totally new concept, that looks great with the green 80mm fan, which has the "Genuine by CoolerMaster" reflective sticker. The fan adaptor to the heatsink isn't much of an adaptor. What it does is reduce backflow; the typical "80 to 60mm adaptor" isn't needed as the size of the heatsink is 80 x 68 mm, large enough so air doesn't have to be centered. Here are the specifications from the back of the box:

The specifications didn't specify the weight of the cooler, but by holding it you can tell it's below AMD's 300 g limit, and of course the snug triple clip design helps to keep the heatsink very secure.

The triple clip design with the mount, also you can see the embedded copper core protruding from the aluminum base

The heatsink itself is simple, looks like a normal aluminum HSF. This construction makes it cheap to construct, it is about ~ $15 US dollars, very cheap for all the design enhancements that CoolerMaster has made in to this Heatsink.

The accessories that come with the cooler, shin etsu silicon thermal paste, a rheostat for a pci slot, molex power converter and a fan speed monitoring wire.

The Heatsink also comes with a rheostat, pictured above, with a pci slot for the back of the computer. This is a great idea if you want to change the rpm's of the fan, I noticed that it ran in between 2400 and 5100 rpm's. It might be inconvenient for some people to reach for the rheostat control every time they want to change their fan speed, but for most of us welcome this as a professional modification. This system is good to set the fan speed to your liking, as much cooling as you need, and let it stay at that setting, so you have a wide range of rpm's to choose instead of having a variable speed fan that changes due to temperature, which also would have an idea for the rest of the people that want this feature. This has been the first time that any heatsink came with this feature. Also the fan is hooked up directly to a molex connector due to the fact that the 7.2 Watt fan could burn the motherboard headers.

Size comparison, from left to right, AMD retail HSF 2200+, Coolermaster HCC-002, Coolermaster Heatpipe, and the X- Dream HAC-V81 cooler.

Let's take a close look at the HAC-V81. Dismounting the cooler, first by taking off the fan, which is held down by 4 clips, which is easy to remove. This allows you to place any 80mm fan, without having to use any screws. The "fan holder" or adaptor for the fan is simple, and allows excess air to flow out of the sides of the heatsink, that prevents air pressure to build up, which would obviously not be an advantage to have.

The fin design is also exclusive, as the fins extend from the base to the top, they get thinner, this makes the fins more aerodynamic, which helps move air faster, with less air resistance which cools better.

At the picture in the left, you can see the fins gets thinner at the top, so less air resistance will be in place. In the right, the copper slug is built in so the heat is transmitted directly to the fins.

The embedded copper cylinder in the heatsink supposedly transfers the heat faster than a copper slug, as seen in the Volcano 7 heatsink. It's great to see hybrid heatsinks, as more traditionally, heatsinks were all aluminum, or all copper. Copper has a lower thermal resistance, and aluminum "displaces" heat faster. With this said, more hybrid coolers are showing up in the market. The Base of this heatsink isn't amazing, it is not the shiniest we have seen, but it's good enough.

The heatsink base isn't great, but it's nicely polished, with the aluminum base too.

After a long time, the center of where the die stood, you can see some mild tarnishing.

Base Comparison, the aluminum base of the HAC-V81 is twice in height than the Coolermaster HCC-001 Heatpipe.

Back to the fan, I first mentioned the rifle bearings that it has. The fan, using the rheostat, spins at 2400 to 5100 rpm's approximately. Coolermaster indicates that the grill reduces backflow, but it looks great!.

As for the noise levels, CoolerMaster indicates 25 to 46 dba's, but even at low speed it's somewhat whiny, sounding like if it was a 30 db 80mm (Sunnon) fan, because of the intensity of the fan, not the pitch, which is a disturbance. At medium speed, it's even more intense and at full blast, well, it is hard to live with. Usually having the fan on at full speed compared to minimum doesn't impair the overclocking abilities, with athlon xp's. I have noted that at full rpms, with an AMD Athlon Palomino XP 1700+, I could only overclock it to 1680 Mhz, and at low rpm to 1650 Mhz, which is clear to say that low speed is better. If my case cooling wouldnt be optimum, then I would have had to crank it up. I'm running with a skyhawk aluminum case and 4 low rpm case fans, with the heater on.

The CoolerMaster X Dream takes the lead, in low rpms, no overclocking it gets 38 C., close to the Coolermaster Heatpipe, but remember that the X Dream is not all copper, it does not incorporate heatpipe technology nor micro fin technology. Great results, although the fan is somewhat whiny, at medium rpm's, but the results are pleasing and at low rpm it's great.

Another view of the base from the side, this heatsink incorporates a good deal of technological advancements done to heatsinks, and it looks like this one of the best options for affordable cooling. The three clip design is great, with the thumb clip makes it alot easier.

This Heatsink has a lot of great features. The performance is comparable to most copper 60 mm heatsinks without the extremely loud pitch. Here are the ups and downs: