Coolermaster HHC-001 CPU Cooler

Author : Wayne Date : 11th March 2002

 

The Heat Sink :

Taking the HHC-001 out of the pack it's hard not to be impressed by the overall look of quality. Apart from this and the weight probably the first two things you'll notice are the heat pipes themselves and the large mounting clip. I mentioned weight because the HHC-001 tips the scales at hefty 520g, not unusual for this size of copper cooler but a real heavyweight all the same.

The shroud is engraved with the Coolermaster corporate logo which is almost visible through the glare in my somewhat rushed photo below. Not a major selling point but another nice cosmetic touch for those of you to who this kind of thing matters. The two protrusions you can see in the image below are the ends of the two heat pipes.

Switching sides we see where those heat pipes sprout from. I've no way of knowing how far into the base they go but it appears they're soldered into place. I thought perhaps the base could have been a touch thicker to act as a kind of "heat buffer" for when the going gets tough but surprisingly the performance figures suggest it doesn't seem to need it.

Looking from another angle you can see how the heat pipes curl around from the base before making their way through 26 copper fins.

And another view of the same thing with the fan removed. I want to mention a seemingly unimportant thing here but it's one that makes a world of difference to installing this particular cooler. No, not the large retaining clip, we'll look at that later. It's the fact that the centre of the clip is actually held against the base by a couple of tongues that wrap around it (arrowed in blue). What this means is that as you raise one end of the clip it pivots about this point and the other end lowers making it so much easier to get the clip hooked onto that first lug. A minor point but one that's so rarely used and so damned easy to work with.

Of course there's no point using a pair of heat pipes if there's no easy way for them to dissipate their heat in to the body of the cooler and on this score Coolermaster have again done the business. Every fin plate is crimped onto the heat pipe at the point where it passes through meaning heat is easily transferred across. It would have been so easy to just cut a neat hole in each fin that Coolermaster have to be applauded for taking this extra step.

Staying with the fins they appear to be soldered to the base. I took a long hard look right the way around and it seems to be a high quality job with no visible gaps or pockets.

Now let's take a look at that retaining clip I mentioned earlier. In addition from having its central pivot fixed making it a whole lot easier to get the first lug located it also has one of the biggest and most finger friendly locking clips I think I've ever seen. If you can't get this sink on without chipping your core you may as well just give up. The head is large and easy to grip and I really don't know why everyone doesn't do this...maybe it's to do with word "patented" that appears in the specs. My only grip is that I'd be far happier if the clip used all three socket lugs as is increasingly becoming the trend. Although it felt perfectly secure when fitted I just feel happier having 520g of copper swinging off six rather than two lugs.

And finally just to prove they haven't got it all right take a look at that base, it pretty much stinks. I'm at a loss to know why Coolermaster have demonstrated so much attention to detail everywhere else then left the base looking like a well furrowed field. For the record I'm reviewing this "as is". No lapping of poor quality bases and no swopping fans, it comes to you "au natural".

I think we've got a pretty good idea what makes this thing tick now so let's get to the all important performance.

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