Sapphire rethinks the CPU cooler – the Vapor-X

The Unboxing and Installation

The Sapphire Vapor-X CPU cooler arrives in a cardboard box that is packed with everything necessary to cool any modern CPU that you may buy. This coolers is “universal” – engineered to fit any modern Intel or AMD CPU’s cooling needs – overclocked or stock.

The Vapor-X Universal CPU Cooler

The Vapor-X is designed for overclocking and it is engineered to easily fit any modern socket as it is held securely in place using a custom Sapphire backplate to fit your motherboard. There is also a control to regulate the fan’s rpm automatically from the BIOS according to the CPU temperatures – they are power managed so that their rpm becomes higher (and more noticeable) as the CPU gets hotter under increasng load.

Here is the Sapphire box that advertises its features at retail emphasing overclocking as supporting CPUs up to 200W TDP:

The box also displays its features on the other side and the side view of the CPU cooler show how it is installed to the motherboard quite simply.

Here are the features and specification from Sapphire’s site:

The cooler is safely packaged within a plastic shell inside the shipping/display box and there is another cardboard box for the accessories and instructions.

Sapphire’s instructions although brief are relatively easy to follow. Here is everything out of the box.

There are common parts and also separate packages with parts included specifically for Intel and AMD CPUs.

The instructions appear fairly well written and reasonably easy to follow – with one flaw.  The direction of the CPU cooler in relation to the installation plate is not particularly well-specified but it is absolutely critical or there will be too much play at the mount and temperatures will suffer!  A suggestion for any company is to do what Kingston does with their SSDs – include an installation video.  Brilliant!  After watching a video that Sapphire tech support sent us, we then had no difficulty following the instructions for installing the Vapor-X CPU cooler on our Intel CPU socket 1155 platform.

The Vapor-X comes with both fans pre-installed but it it easy to clip and unclip them to remove them from the fin stack.  The idea is the same as with Thermaltake’s Frio cooler so it is easy to install the cooler first onto the mounting plate securely, and then to clip on the fans easily.  Since the Vapor-X cooler is relatively small, it is very easy to work with, even in a mid-tower case.

Below is our Sapphire Vapor-X CPU cooler out of the case and ready for installation. First the cooler mounting hardware has to be prepared by installing a backplate on the other side of the motherboard.On the other side (below), the risers are installed and the nuts tightened down on the other side of the motherboard (above). A mounting plate is then screwed down with 4 screws (below).  Except for the irritation of having to deal with tiny screws, the Vapor-X is a very simple and straightforward installation. There is no frustration with this CPU cooler’s installation unless you drop one of the screws.

All that is left to do is to position the CPU cooler screws over the corresponding holes and tighten them down as shown below.The installation is very simple.  The Vapor-X uses a two bolt mounting system similar to Noctua’s.  However, it is crucial that the fan is oriented properly with the mounting plate.  If you mount it wrongly (upside-down in relation to the plate), there will be significant rocking or flex possible on the base with a result of poor cooling contact and higher temperatures than with optimum contact.  There should be almost no motion when gentle hand pressure is applied to the heatsink – if it is mounted correctly.  If not, simply change the orientation of the heatsink 180 degrees.

Below shows one fan clipped on and waiting for the second one.  There is no fumbling or struggling with metal clips as with so many other designs.  Just make sure the plastic fan clips are clipped down so they are flat in relation to the surrounding plastic.

Removing the Vapor-X cooler is just as straightforward as installation.  Unclip the fans, loosen the 2 screws, then remove the cooler from the mounting plate on the motherboard.  Removal and installation is very quick with the Vapor-X and the mounting design is very similar to the similarly-priced Thermaltake Frio.

Both the Thermaltake Frio (above) and the Vapor-X score very high marks for ease of installation and convenience.  The advantage that the Vapor-X has is with the blue LED lighting built into their fans as well as the options to customize them with other fans; you are stuck with Thermaltake’s slightly noisier fans as they are built into the clip-on housing.

To cool well, there has to be a great contact surface.  The Vapor-X has a relatively rough machined surface (below) compared with the competing Frio which has a smoother surface, although it does not approach the mirror-like quality of the much more expensive Noctua NH-DH14.

With many super-smooth high-end coolers, the end user should only use a dab of any thermal compound; specifically, a drop 4-5 mm in diameter in the center of the HS contact plate (about the size of a grain of rice). Applying too much compound will lower the thermal conductivity and adversely affect the cooling performance of your CPU cooler.  However, with the rougher surface of the Vapor-X, more compound must be used than on a mirror-like surface.

It looks like we may have a performance cool and quiet winner by the specifications and the “look” and feel of the Vapor-X CPU coolers. This cooler looks great – especially running with their blue LEDs lit up brightly. Let’s check our test bed and then see how far we can push our Core i7-3770K with the Sapphire Vapor-X.

Share

• Discuss on ABT Forum
• 

Related

«1. Introduction2. Unboxing & Installation3. Test Configuration & OCCT4. Conclusion5. View All»

Pages: 1 2 3 4