Vantec put some serious thought into this cooler. The heatsink design is similar to that of the Dr Thermal and Thermalrite AX7 coolers. There are fins on all 4 sides of the cooler and in the center of it all is a copper core in which the CPU core makes contact with. The fin design is pretty unique. If you look at the diagram below you can see just how unique it really is. The air comes down through the fins and is channeled out away from the cpu. This was done so that the heat is taken away from the heatsink. The other coolers with a similar design are cut straight down and allows the warm air to blow right onto the CPU and to possibly hang in that area causing the temps to be higher.

On top of this heatsink is YS Tech's TMD fan. These fans are very nice. Not only are they cool looking, but they are quiet and move a decent amount of air. At 35.5 CFM you would expect these fans to make a little noise but they make very little. They are rated at 38dB(A) so you do hear them some but once the side panel is on the case you don't hear anything. The TMD fan is a Tip-Magnetic Driving fan. It basically has 4 motors that are on the outside of the fan and not the standard 1 motor that is generally in the center of the fan. By doing it this way, YS Tech was able to cut down on a lot of the noise that the blades make. Since there isn't any blade tips to whip through the air I think YS Tech has made a really winner with this fan.

Given how the heatsink was designed Vantec had to come up with a different way to hold the cooler on. And they did very well with it. Most heatsinks have a clip that is in the bottom 1/4" of the cooler. Vantec choose to take their clip up higher and cut these 2 grooves through the heatsink as seen in the picture below. The clip uses all 3 of the socket lugs so it fits nice and secure. She won't come off I can guarantee that.

Installation was a bit tricky for me. Since this cooler is 74.5mm wide I had that wonderful row of capacitors on the 8K3A+ that was in the way but it wasn't too bad. Just had to take it slow and easy so that I wouldn't bust off one of those caps. This clip is fairly stout and use of a straight screwdriver is a must to get the swiveled end hooked on and secured.