Gigabyte G-Power Cooler Pro Review - PAGE 2

Although the G-Power Cooler Pro still relies on air to dissipate heat, its design is still quite unique. The entire cooling device is made out of aluminum, and as such, is nowhere near as heavy as it appears. Heat is absorbed through the thick heat plate, and conducted along four heat pipes to the large 110 mm by 110 mm by 25 mm heatsink, which is actually suspended over the CPU socket by the same four heat pipes. This allows a good deal of clearance from even the most cramped of motherboard designs. There is a good 1.5 inches of clearance between the heat plate and heatsink fins.

Heat is drawn from the fins and heatpipes by a futuristic-looking fan, complete with a turbine-like shroud and blue LEDs. Power is provided to the fan through the regular 3-pin connector, though Gigabyte provides some accessories in this arena. If you do not wish to run the fan at its full speed, Gigabyte has included a fan bus that is accessible either through a 3.5" drive bay or a spare PCI slot.

The installation of the G-Power Cooler Pro is direction-independant. Gigabyte claims that the cooler is omnidirectional, meaning that it can be installed in any orientation. Looking at the various mounting mechanisms, this seems like it is the case. As I mentioned in the introduction, motherboard compatibility ought not be an issue at all due to all of these design factors but after our review of Zalman's oversized CNPS7700-AlCu several users brought up the point that if the processor socket is too close to the edge of the board, it can interfere with the actual case as many modern cases do not have a lot of clearance between the motherboard and power supply.