Prolimatech MK-26 Black Edition
RRP: $89.99 | Website: www.prolimatech.com
A
ftermarket coolers for
graphics cards have always
been a market that saw fewer
competitors than it should have. For
the most part, only water blocks
were an alternative especially over
the last half decade or so. Part of
it perhaps is as a result of vendor
supplied heatsinks having improved
to the point where I think aftermarket
coolers became unnecessary. At
least that’s what I thought until I
came across the Prolimatech MK-26
Black Edition. The cooler is relatively
slim, but with the fans mounted
and installed on the graphics card.
It makes any graphics card look
monstrous. It will certainly turn it into
a three slot installation so you should
forget about three way graphics when
using such a cooler.
Fortunately, most people do not
use such configuration and as a
result the size becomes immaterial
for the most part. Once installed,
the MK-26 should more than make
up for its asking price as it does
a great job at cooling your GPU.
This is particularly true when
installed on the latest Radeon R9 290
or 290X graphics cards. These make
for a particularly interesting test
41 The OverClocker Issue 27 | 2013
case, because the cooler that AMD
provides is extra ordinarily loud even
with the fan speed tuned to 60%.
This also happens to be the
graphics card we chose to test the
MK-26 with, so we could see just how
well it would do when put through
its paces by a particularly hot GPU.
While I was installing this cooler,
I came across a potential problem
with supposed compatibility of
the MK-26 and Hawaii GPUs. The
core, unlike with the Tahiti GPUs,
isn’t rotated by 45 degrees which
means that the provided copper heat
spreader doesn’t cover the entire
core. The opposite edges of the
GPU will be exposed as a result.
Over and above that, you’ll also find
that the provided number of heatsinks
are not enough to cool all the
components that is needed on the R9
290/290X. So you should be aware of
this before deciding to spend money
on this cooler and consider buying
some more heat sinks.
That aside, installing the MK-26
was pretty straight forward and
once I started putting it through
its paces; the MK-26 was very
impressive. The load temperature
decreased from 94’C with the stock
cooler, to a more acceptable 76’C.
That’s an 18’C drop in temperatures
which is nothing short of incredible.
Consider as well, that the MK-26 is
virtually inaudible.
In comparison; for me to keep
temperatures that low using
the stock cooler, I had to set the
reference cooler’s fan to 70% of its
maximum rotation speed. This isn’t
really an option as the noise levels
become unbearable. So installing
the MK-26 isn’t, in this case, about
reducing temperature exclusively,
but delivering a significant drop in
noise levels as well. As a result of
the temperature reduction, I was
able to overclock the graphics card
comfortably for extended gaming
sessions. The throttling wouldn’t
kick in and as such, performance
increased. Short of the two issues I
highlighted above regarding the MK26, there isn’t anything to fault the
MK-26 on. $90 for the performance
improvements and noise reduction
is more than fair and I for one will
never part with the MK-26 Black
Edition. I would seriously urge you
to look at investing in this cooler as
it’s the best I’ve ever used.
[ The Overclcoker ]