Cooler Master V8 CPU Cooler Review

Fan Design

With a lot rid riding on the abilities of this fan, we were absolutely unimpressed with the unit Cooler Master went with. Don’t get us wrong; this is very decent fan, one which is both fairly quiet and fairly well mannered. Unfortunately, it is completely inadequate for the situation it has been placed into.

In a nut shell it is a 9 bladed, 120mm fan made by Xinchangfeng Electronics Co., Ltd. who are better known as Martech. In this instance it is the DF1202512RFHN model fan. In a very nice move, Cooler Master has released some much need specifications for this fan. These are Rifle Bearing fans capable of 800- 1800RPMs and at its max speed of 1800rpms it moves 69.69CFM at an impressive 2.94mmH20.


Why did Cooler Master go with a slow fan for the V8 when they had a faster model already in the V10s model? We are not sure but it most likely a cost cutting measure and not one related to a lower noise envelope. We are less inclined to be forgiving and call it overly aggressive noise reduction (i.e. “who knows maybe the 2400RPM model was too loud…etc etc”) as Cooler Master includes a potentiometer with the V8 to tweak its speed and thus its noise envelope…and further reduce its cooling ability. The last bit is a nice touch and one we wish was included on their V10s TEC, but on a fan which needs every bit of power it can get? Phrases like “less than optimal solution” come to mind.

Further compounding the issues is the fact this fan is glued into position and we mean GLUED into position. You really would have to take your time and slowly pry the plastic cowl off it, lest you break it. If you do break it, your cooler would be a fancy and expensive paper weight as this plastic cowling is what keeps the fan in place. If you are lucky and patient enough to do this you would then have to hot glue the replacement fan back in place. All in all, this would be a time consuming and stressful endeavor to say the least. We tried to pry our unit off so we could further test out our theory on it being the wrong fan for the job but we stopped when it the plastic started flexing in a impressively scary way. So for all intents and purposes, the majority of users are not ever going to use that potentiometer and there is no way to easily remove it or even replace the fan.

On the positive side this fan displayed very little shaft or off axis blade slop as is consistent with good quality, well contrasted rifle bearing fans. When running at full speed, we did notice this fan was even better mannered than the faster versions found on the big brother V10, though this was to be expected as it is running 600rpm slower.


Also on the positive side was the inclusion of the already-mentioned potentiometer and a PCI bracket for easy access to it. Why anyone would feel the need to further reduce the speed (and thus noise) of this fan is not the point; the main point is the Cooler Master felt someone would want to do it and thus in a move classic of this company, they included everything their customers could want.

All in all this is a very good, very mild mannered fan; one which most people in most situations would love to see come standard with their new Cooler Master product. Unfortunately, this is not most cases and the V8 really needs a fire breathing, obnoxious SOB of fan to excel. We wouldn’t be totally surprised if that is what was originally spec’ed as this would make the inclusion of the potentiometer make a lot more sense. In the end, only time and testing will tell if we are on the right track or not…so lets put away the theories and get down to real world practical experience.