Features & Specifications
The Vindicator is a fairly standard heatpipe tower design, typical of high-performance air coolers on the market today. The base of the unit is solid copper with aluminum fins oriented longitudinally along the top section of the copper plate. From here, six heatpipes extend upward into a wealth of 23 aluminum fins laced with a separation of approximately 3mm. The placement of the heatpipes is what gives this cooler its defining characteristic. Instead of the typical parallel orientation of all 6 heatpipes in coolers with such a quantity, the OCZ Vindicator utilizes two arrays of three heatpipes arranged in perpendicular fashion - meaning three in each direction.


In terms of packaging, the Vindicator’s clear vinyl box is definitely flashy and distinguishable on the shelf. The practice here of displaying the business end of the cooler so prominently is a welcome change from certain companies who tend to think it is best to promote their products as embellished images on a cardboard shell. Although the package is impressive aesthetically, the same cannot be said for its functionality. Upon removing the unit from its box, we found several aluminum fins bent or otherwise disfigured through the shipping process.


The package contents are pretty straightforward. Included with the OCZ Vindicator is a 1,000RPM 120mm fan that pushes 40CFM at 18.5dBA (according to product packaging); a mounting bracket for use with AMD sockets AM2, 939, and 754; a small little plastic thingy filled with thermal paste; and an installation guide. The Vindicator we received came ready out of the box for use on Intel’s LGA775 socket. The method of installation for the unit is the plastic pushpin design we see on Intel’s stock HSF that is included with all retail LGA775 processors. We have mixed reactions to this design. On the positive side, the pushpin design means that the motherboard does not have to be removed from the system for installation. This is a more than welcome change from the norm for high-end CPU coolers these days, which basically require a complete computer dissection prior to installation. However, for a cooler this heavy and more importantly this tall, using pushpins with the lack of a back plate seems to be a rather precarious mounting method. Although it can be argued that the stock Intel HSF is actually extremely heavy and is mounted by the same process, that cooler has a center of gravity much lower to the motherboard surface than the Vindicator, and as such the bending moment it transfers to the socket area is far less significant. Thankfully the majority of the Vindicator’s weight seems to be distributed lower on the unit due to the use of aluminum fins, so the potential for disaster (i.e. severe motherboard deformation and/or shear failure) is diminished.


There are detailed instructions on the OCZ website regarding the correct installation procedure for the Vindicator. OCZ advocates that the lower heatsink on the Vindicator should be positioned in a way that is parallel with the airflow generated by the fan, thereby allowing this lower heatsink to be cooled more effectively by convection. This surely makes sense, and according to the instructional page OCZ ran an in-house thermal test to quantify the effect of correct orientation on the Vindicator. The results are rather spectacular, as the on-chip diode reported a 12C difference at 80W between the two orientations. While we really did not need a reason to follow their instructions – nor did we really need the instructions in the first place – it is nice to see that OCZ has gone the extra distance to prove their methods to customers. Unfortunately it looks like they did not pay so much attention to the finish on the bottom plate of the cooler, as the razor test seems to show less than perfect results.


Finally, the included fan on the Vindicator seems to be fairly high quality and moves a substantial amount of air for being rated at only 1,000 RPM (@ 12V). However, 40CFM strikes us as being quite low for a fan in use on a high performance cooling solution. Clearly OCZ has placed an emphasis on silence with the design of the Vindicator, as the cooler is NOT AUDIBLE over typical ambience. While we appreciate silent designs on coolers, we have our reservations about such products being used on some of the disgustingly high heat-producing processors becoming commonplace. We will not be using an alternate 120mm fan in our testing of the Vindicator, but it is very nice to know that removing the stock fan is extremely simple and accomplished through the removal of two metal clips. This fan mounting method has the added bonus of vertical travel along the heatsink face, which allows for easier installation of taller memory modules such as those from OCZ’s Reaper HPC and FlexXLC series.