Installation:

You may or may not have to remove your motherboard to install your Vindicator which depends on what kind of cooler you presently have and the particular method used to attach it. If you use the stock retail Intel or AMD CPU cooler, then swapping them out is very easy. You basically just twist the black thumb tabs on your stock Intel cooler and pull up. The AMD coolers clip on and off even easier. Clean off the old thermal paste and apply a batch of your favorite.

3pin Plugged In

Mounting Tabs

2 More Tabs

Clears Heat Sinks

Well, I have to say this is a very easy heat sink to work with especially where weight and maneuvering come in to play. The Vindicator comes with the Intel mounting bracket pre-attached which has the four default Intel style fasteners that are pressed down till they click in to place. Of course, you should press down opposite corners at the same time to protect your processor from the tilting copper base. To remove the heat sink, you simply twist the black tabs till they stop and pull back up gently. It's simple as that.

Mounted (Front)

Mounted (Back)

AMD users will have to remove the Intel mounting bracket via 4 screws before you can set the Vindicator in place. Once the bracket is off, the AMD bracket slips over the same copper base and is attached using the 4 screws. Then the cooler can be set on the CPU orientating the metal clip over the motherboard brackets. All that has to be done is twist the locking tab in to position and you're done.

Test System:

• Intel Core 2 Duo E6600

• ABIT Fatality IN9 SLI 680i Motherboard

• 2x1GB OCZ PC2-6400 Flex XLC

• Geforce 7900 GT PCIE 256MB

• Bluegears Inspirer 7.1 Audio

• Enermax 720 Watt Infiniti Power Supply

First off, the system was used normally for two days to allow the cooler to set properly for more real world results followed by testing. Temperatures were recorded with two hours of 3D graphic intensive games to show typical single and limited dual core results. This was followed up with 2 hours of running CPU Burn which very thoroughly heats up both cores a hundred percent.

Idle temps were a very low 28C. Under typical loads like game play and programs, most dual cores are still running on one core unless the programs are coded to take advantage fully.  Audio and Video programs often take advantage of dual cores, but there aren't many other desktop programs we all might typically use. CPU Burn on the other hand, really heats up both CPU cores fully at a 100 percent. This kind of power consumption generates a lot of heat compared to a single core under load. Temperatures reached 41C and stayed steady throughout this load.

Overclocking the processor to 3.3GHz and allowing the system to sit idle for a couple hours reached 41C. But, under dual core torture testing, temperatures reached 60C. It took longer to reach this result compared to the Ultra-X. To be honest, I was a bit surprised mainly due to the fact that the fan isn't pushing a great amount of air. This is a very good temperature score given the specs of the Vindicator.

Now, I can't just leave this cooler as it is. We at VH know greater potential when we see it which is why we modify and tweak pretty much every component we personally own in our systems. With that in mind, I just had to retest using Artic Silver 5 and a faster fan such as the Sunbeam 120mm blue LED which I've used in many test cases. In short, almost every temperature dropped to match the Ultra-X across the entire test range. The Vindicator becomes a new cooler with better improvements.

Front - Normal Light

Front - Low Light

The results put my opinions in a bit of a quandary. On the one hand, the Vindicator performs surprisingly, very well based on it's very thin material and design. There really isn't anything negative that comes to mind aside from the need to handle it with some care. Rarely will you need to dig inside your case to do anything that can cause the heat sink damage. What is missing is just a better thermal compound. Originally, I thought a faster fan would contribute to lowering the temperatures just a bit more. But after trying an Aerocool 120mm 75 CFM fan, temperatures dropped down a degree, but was a bit louder which defeats the purpose of the quieter fan. The thinner cooler material benefits from any extra cooling. In the end, the Artic Silver 5 did more good than a louder, faster fan. This basically proves that the OCZ engineers weighed the options and went with the wiser quieter choice.

Top - Normal Light

Top - Low Light

Conclusion:

Working with the OCZ Vindicator CPU Cooler was a pleasure and very simple to install. It's weight and gauge of material have its benefits and some challenges. Foremost, you should take just a little care when handling and tweaking the CPU cooler because it is so thin. This same light weight concept also contributed immensely to its great performance even with a less than sturdy chassis. And there is the added benefit of so much less stress on the motherboard and CPU brackets commonly associated with large CPU tower coolers.

Temperature scores undoubtedly will speak the largest volumes for users looking to build their next system. Even with its slower and quieter fan, the Vindicator performs well and should not be ignored as your next possible choice of performance coolers. The cooler won't be cooling any of your other components since it's following the CPU tower cooler design which directs air horizontally as opposed to vertically. But, again, the cooler is meant to focus its cooling capacity on the CPU and not the other components. Based solely on specifications and installation, the OCZ Vindicator CPU Cooler rocks!