Cooler Master Hydra 8800 Hybrid GPU Cooler Review

When I first laid eyes on the Hydra 8800, I said "oh, that looks an awful lot like the stock heatsink, but looks a whole lotcooler". No pun intended at all, I just mean it looks neatsy-keen. (Tell me you didn't just say that - Ed.)As I looked more closely at it, something became apparent... it basically IS a stock cooler.


I mean... sure, the stock fan has been replaced with a blue LED fan and there is now a high performance metal shroud with cool artwork (both of which are believed to make frame rates increase by 5% each) but when you look under the metal shroud...


.... that extra "performance" is only being held on by some double sided tape!

Now maybe I'm being too harsh. The reference 8800GTX cooler is a very well-designed heatpipe solution that is both quiet and capable of taming the extremely hot G80 core. Needless to say my first impressions of this cooler were less than stellar considering all it seems to be is a modified stock cooler. That said, you're not doing reading quite yet... stick around for the performance numbers since this decision to use a stock heatsink MIGHT have been absolutely brilliant on Cooler Master's part. Why mess with a good thing, right?


One thing I don't miss is the non-standard 4 pin design used by nVidia for their heatsinks. I appreciate being able to choose my own fan speed without messing around with nTune. Cooler Master thought of this and had the good sense to include a 3 pin connector on their fan as well as a molex adapter for those who want to use a 4 pin power cable.


Cooler Master thoughtfully protected the underside of the copper GPU contact plate with a piece of removable plastic. We have seen in the past that some manufacturers tend to leave their bases open to the elements so it is good to see that Cooler Master protected theirs quite well.

I've seen shinier finishes, but shiny without flat is not important. The base is flat enough to provide good contact, but it's not dramatically better than the stock cooler's finish.

Interior Impressions

If you already own an 8800GTX, lean over, look at your stock heatsink. That's the internals of the Hydra 8800.... With a twist! They added the new fan and they also added a water cooling tube attached to one of the internal heatpipes.


Cooler Master made room for the tube by removing some of the air cooling fins and we'll find out in the results whether this has a noticeable impact on the air cooling performance of the Hydra 8800. The tubing they use looks rather restrictive, but we can forgive a less-than-stellar water cooling design for the flexibility afforded by the Hydra 8800. As of the time this review is published, the Hydra it is the ONLY GPU cooler on the market that is able to operate both with and without water cooling.

The water cooling tube is soldered to one of the heatpipes that already exists in the reference heatsink design. That means heat has to be transferred from the GPU to the base plate and then all the way to the heatpipe. Whether this long journey for the heat has an impact on performance remains to be seen.