OCZ Gladiator MAX CPU Cooler Review

Heatsink Construction & Design

When you first get glance at the Gladiator MAX, it is easy to draw parallels between it and the aforementioned Vendetta 2. However, there are some very large differences between the two generations of OCZ heatsinks which we will be discussing a bit later in this section.

As for its dimensions, it all is fairly typical for a medium size tower cooler; as the Gladiator MAX weight about 780 grams (with fan) and is 63mm deep by 120mm wide by 165mm tall. To put it another way it is 6mm taller than the reference Xigmatek S1284 and is 3mm deeper.


For anyone who has never seen the Gladiator MAX CPU cooling solution a little bit of an overview is in order. The Gladiator MAX is a tower style cooler that has four large 8mm heatpipes, two of which start at the top left and go down to the base, are flattened to act as a majority of said base and then zoom back up to terminate at the top right side. The other two are start off at the top right, go down to the base (and acts as the rest of the base) and then head back up to the top left.

Interestingly, if you look at the cooler from the bottom to the top you would also notice these heatpipes are not only staggered in their order they are also physically staggered thus making the base looked “zigzagged”. All in all, it is a fairly atypical setup with it being unique even for a Direct Touch heatsink base.


While the heatpipes maybe considered a refinement on an already existing technology, OCZ has taken a unique approach when it comes to the cooling fin assembly and design. In total you have 42 of these closely spaced aluminum fins arranged on top of one another. Unfortunately, these fins do not have the Vendetta 2’s unique bumps on the fins which helped channel air towards the heatpipes (and increase the surface area slightly).

OCZ states the design of these fins do still help channel air towards the heatpipes, but we don’t think it can be as efficient a design as the Vendetta 2’s. Only time and testing will tell whether or not those bumps on the fins actually did anything, but for now, lets assume OCZ has taken all this into account and designed the fin assembly to be as efficient as its brethren.


On the positive side the back of the fins of this heatsink have been tweaked from the boring Xigmatek base design. If you look closely you can see that the fins are in a double M design. This design is very similar to the Vendetta’s in that it is not just for looks, by designing these fins in this way the air moving over them is encourage to flow in certain directions and minimize dead or high static pressure zones. The fact that it does all this and looks very striking is one heck of a bonus and does give it a very unique look; too bad the Gladiator Max is also like the Vendetta 2 and it can only accept one fan.


As you can see in the above photo the Gladiator Max may share some similarities to its brethren the Vendetta 2 (and thus Xigmatek S1283) but it is very different when you take a closer look. Unlike the Vendetta 2, this unit has four heatpipes (versus three) and while this the technically the largest difference between the two. However, the biggest difference in our opinion is on how OCZ went about designing this 4 “direct touch” heatpipe base. Unlike the Vendetta 2 which had three heatpipes spaced apart with the gaps between them filled with aluminum pillars from the top portion of the base; this unit has huge honkin’ gaps between these heatpipes. I don’t care how much TIM you use on the bottom of your cooler, it sure as heck isn't filling those chasms up! This in turn could mean decreased cooling efficiency.

Large gaps aside, OCZ has done an above average job with finishing the base and it is about as well polished and major tool mark free as the Vendetta 2 model. It is very difficult (and expensive) to polish copper to a mirror-like shine, and it is doubly difficult to do so with thinly-walled heatpipes.