CES 2011 Coverage

Cooler Master

Our trip through Cooler Master's exhibit started off with a look at its Elite series cases, the 342, 371 and 310. The bezel on the display 310 is blue, but it does come in other colors, such as red, silver and orange. Up next, we got a look at a small form factor case with a ton of airflow thanks to a couple of strategically placed fans. Next in line was a series of cases wearing Thermal Master badges. These cases look functional and are built for use in developing countries.

Cooler Master is well known for its chassis and the cooling solutions it brings to market. Most notably in the past year was the V6 that we looked at. This year, the company was showing off a new tower heat sink labeled the H-B6. When you look at the size of this cooler, you expect a behemoth in the weight department, but this cooler is surprisingly light for its size. The heat pipes and mounting system are designed to flow across the heat zones of the CPU instead of having several of the heat pipes running parallel to the heat zones, thus making the heat sink more effective. The fin spacing is increased so that low noise fans can be employed effectively.

Next, we looked at two other heat sinks. The first looked like a smaller version of the Gemini-line 'C' shaped coolers. This unit, the G-B5, can make use of a 140mm fan or the installed 120mm Cooler Master fan. The V-A2 is a heat pipe based cooler for use in HTPC type chassis and uses both 'U' and 'C' shaped heat pipes for an efficient transfer of the thermal load to the fin array.