Prolimatech MK-26 Video Card Cooler Review (Page 6)

Installation and Finished Product

The test subject for today's review of the MK-26 will be the HIS Radeon HD 7950 IceQ Turbo that HIS provided me for just such testing as this.

I went ahead and stripped the video card of all the stock cooling and prepped both the memory and the power delivery chips with both alcohol, then an eraser to get rid of any and all oil and debris.

I was pondering the layout of the cooling for the power delivery system on the HD 7950. I could have set the large heat sinks as they are and then use those tiny heat dissipation plates, but I had a better idea.

With just a little bit of checking first, I found that the MK-26 does not interfere with the use of the stock cooler and PCB support system supplied from the factory, so I am going to use this instead.

Following the instruction I placed all 12 of the memory heat sinks, and was sure to put the low profile one on the correct IC. I was also glad to see that the stock cooling plate causes no fitment issues with the memory sinks as well.

At this point I would suggest you plug in the fan adapter plug. The instructions show it going on much later in the assembly, but the room to get this in place once the cooler is on the video card is too limited to do so easily.

Checking against the chart, I grabbed the set of legs that it shows work with the HD 7950 and screwed them into place so we can get on with the installation.

At this point, since I have to use the provided adapter plate, I took some of the PK-3 and applied it to the base of the cooler. Now all I have to do is lock the pins on the adapter plate into those three holes.

Once I applied the adapter plate, and pressed on it a bit to set it well against the base, I cleaned off the oils from my hand and again applied more PK-3 to the adapter plate that will be making direct contact with the exposed GPU die on the video card.