GlacialTech UFO V51 CPU Cooler Review

Installation

Anyone who has installed an AMD CPU in the past decade knows that you have two main contact points at about the midpoint of the CPU. The 775 has four corner points. Of the two Intel is usually easier, not always but it usually is. The UFO V51 takes this four corner point mounting system and turns it into a two point setup which is not necessarily a bad thing as we saw with the Prolimatech Megahalems. In fact, converting to a two point setup does have some positive points and there are some good arguments for it. Unfortunately, the Prolimatech cooler is a tall and narrow U type heatsink whereas the UFO is wide and “short” downdraft cooler. Getting you fingers underneath it’s fin array is darn near impossible and if your motherboard is like ours and uses heatsinks for the motherboard Mosfets, chips, etc…it is not only difficult but curse worthy difficult.

OK let’s back this train wreck up and start at the beginning. To start this installation process you first thread two screws through each of the two main retaining brackets. You then thread these retaining screws through the four corner mounting holes and spin a small nut unto them. There is a small rubber washer applied to one side of the nut so there are no worries about shorting out your motherboard; snapping a corner hole or the motherboard is another thing all together (albeit a very unlikely worry). While we would have preferred some sort of backplate, this cooler's weight isn't enough to necessitate one.


Once these two retaining brackets are in place you then add some thermalcompound to the CPU, mount the V51 and using the crossbar retaining screw said cross bar into place with very, very small screws. You know you are in for a rough ride when there is a 90° Allen wrench included for the screws. While these screws are technically knurled they are still too slippery to finger into place underneath the V51…even if you could easily reach them. The easiest way to get them into place is use either a magnetic screwdriver to align them and then with your other hand use the Allen key to push them into place and tighten them down. As we said earlier; if your motherboard is like many it will not matter which direction you mount the V51 as one side is going to be a real pain to get tightened down.


About the only good thing about this whole installation is the fact you shouldn't have to worry about the UFO V51 interfering, touching or even coming close to your ram or motherboard heatsinks. Even in its "worst case scenario" mounting orientation there should be no worries for most people. We can comfortably say this cooler should fit in at least one orientation as even though it is not tall enough to be comfortable to work with, but tall enough to be safe for most boards and ram configurations out there. As with all our cooler reviews, your configuration may differ enough from ours as to limit your installation options, but in that case you already know your system limitations.


This installation IS going to take you a nice long time to do and you can forget about trying it inside your case. You will have a tough go of it even if you remove the motherboard and the amount of frustration and hassle is great enough that if it wasn’t for the fact that I HAD to do it (and multiple times at that…and NO it did not get easier with practice), I wouldn't have continued. You have been forewarned: I would have packed this abomination back up and simply told both my editor and GlacialTech: “NO. I refuse to waste my time on this….this thing”…or an uncensored less polite version to that effect. Unless this cooler turns out to be the most amazing thing since sliced bread….it is going to be interesting trying to find “Pros” to add to the conclusion.