Cooler Master MasterAir Maker 8 CPU Cooler Review

Introduction, Specifications, and Pricing

Just when you think air cooling has hit a plateau, and there is not much more that manufacturers can do, Cooler Master steps in and turns the market upside down. While there is some familiarity with the naming of this most recent submission that may make you think back to the V8 cooler they introduced a while back, rest assured this is nothing like that cooler aside from the fact that it also uses a shroud and offers LED lighting to dress up this design. Outside of those similarities, the cooler we are about to see is an entirely new beast.

In the spirit of the Maker Movement that Cooler Master seems to be very much involved with, they decided this time to make a cooler that is customizable so that each owner can make it unique to suit their particular needs. Of course, the primary structure is not mod-able, but that has not kept Cooler Master down in what they have brought forth. Firstly this is a single tower design, using a pair of fans to cool it, and is shipped in one of four creative options. To allow this sort of changeability, Cooler Master offers a pair of top cover plates that are interchangeable, and there is also the option to run without a cover to the shroud. Going just a bit deeper, there is also a dressed up insert that resides on the cooler out of the box, but it too can be removed as well for the fourth option in aesthetic appeal. They have also designed optional fan brackets that allow users to switch from the pair of 140mm fans that cool this tower and have the option to use 120mm fans instead.

This is a first in CPU air cooling for us. Of course, some coolers have come with shrouds and multiple fans but never have we seen such a modular design. The thing is, though; this is not the only thing that Cooler Master has offered here. While vapor chambers are nothing new to Cooler Master, they have redesigned how it plays into this design and are introducing their first cooler to use a 3D Vapor Chamber design. This leaves us with a ton to cover on this product and is an entirely new way of looking at what a CPU air cooler can be.

With this product being very hush-hush at the moment, Cooler Master was not offering a specifications chart, so we copied what we found on the packaging. Right out of the gate we see that the MasterAir Maker 8 will fit all of the relevant Intel and AMD sockets, going back as far as LGA775 and Socket AM2 plus. In this design, we find a copper 3D vapor chamber that works along with four 6mm diameter copper heat pipes. This is all then sent through a tall stack of aluminum fins to allow the fans to take away the heat produced from the CPU. Overall dimensions are 135mm by 145mm across the top, and we see that this 1350 gram monster stands 172mm in height. The actual heat sink is smaller than the overall dimensions, and without the shroud and fans, the cooler body weighs in at 785 grams.

To remove the heat from the fin stack, Cooler Master offers a pair of 140mm fans in a push-pull setup. These 25mm thick fans will spin in a range of 800 to 1600 RPM delivering up to 66CFM each. These are rated to last 160,000 hours delivering up to 2.2 mmH2O of static pressure and are rated to deliver only 24 dB(A) of noise at peak power. We also see the power draw of each fan along with their 130-gram weight. The last thing that we are offered in this chart is that Cooler Master backs the MasterAir Maker 8 with a five-year warranty.

Of course, with us bringing this cooler to you on its release date, we are unable to locate this cooler at the time of writing this up. We were told that availability should be ready for release, so many of the major haunts for PC gear should have this cooler listed very soon after reading this. There is a bit of a sticker shock associated with this design as well, but there is also more going on with this design that in anything we have seen previously, and all of that adds up. We were informed that Cooler Master has set the MSRP of the MasterAir Maker 8 at $129.99. Along with the cooler, they are also introducing Master Gel thermal paste at $19.99, but that portion will be tested at a later date to show what it is capable of. For now, we will deal solely with the MasterAir Maker 8 and everything you are getting for this high-end investment.