Closer Look: Cooler Master V6GT

The retail box is the first thing most people will see, and Cooler Master does their best to make sure you'll notice it:

Opening the Velcro-secured top flap of the box reveals the top of the cooler peeking through a clear plastic cover. I'm not sure what those things on either side of the cooler are supposed to be, but they look somehow impressive.

The Cooler Master RR-V6GT-22PK-R1 CPU cooler includes the mounting hardware for Intel Socket 775/1156/1366, and AMD Socket AM2/AM2+/AM3.

The cooler itself comprises 55 0.6mm-thick fins pierced by 6 heat pipes. Snap-on shrouds secure a 120x25mm fan on each side of the cooler, while a plastic plate on the top of the cooler contains an LED light strip whose color is controlled by pressing on the "Cooler Master" logo button on top of the unit. Both fans use four-pin PWM-controllable connectors, and Cooler Master supplies a "splice" cable that gangs both together so you can run both fans from your motherboard's CPU fan connector. A separate four-pin Molex connector provides power for the LED light strip at the top of the cooler. The fans are rated at 34-94 CFM per fan, which means the cooler can make use of over 180 CFM of air with both fans at full speed. The very observant might note that only the red connector of the splice cable provides the fan tachometer lead, which makes sense if you're plugging both fans into a single motherboard header.

The snap-off shrouds that secure the fans make changing the fans, or removing them for cleaning, easy. I prefer this type of fan mounting to fiddly wire clips or push-through rubber pins. The fan sits neatly in the shroud, which has a relief opening for the cable. It's a little hard to see in this photo, but each shroud has a rubber pad near the corner to isolate the fan vibrations from the cooler body.

The fans are this cooler aren't lighted, but pressing the "Cooler Master" button (the company refers to this button as an "oil can") on the top of the V6GT will cycle a two-color LED under a light pipe between off, red, blue, and both (purple). The cooler will retain your last color choice between power cycles.

Join me in the next section as I continue examining this cooler.

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