CoolIT Domino ALC CPU cooler Review - PAGE 2

The CoolIT Domino comes packaged in a black cardboard box which, by its dimensions, illustrates how small it is. On the back of the box, there are some usual quotes stating how awesome this unit is.

As one can see, the whole system is a single piece, with no removable parts. On the outside of the unit, there is a little LCD which indicates the state of the system, as we will see later.

It will attach to the case by a 120mm fan, via four small vibration dampening rubber fan mounts that must be pulled through the 120mm case fan holes. The fan is actually pulling the air though the radiator and pushing it through the exhaust at the back of the case, where it is installed.

At the back, one can see the radiator and the pump. There is also a sticker explaining the three settings that the unit can be set to, by using the little button on the left of this sticker, on the side of the unit. The tubings are solidly anchored to the unit with screws.

These tubings, having a diameter of 8.5mm or a bit over 3/8" by the way, connect to the processor waterblock. Its surface, which has pre-applied thermal compound, is protected by a plastic cap. The system comes ready to mount on a LGA1366 system, but the same brackets can be used for LGA775 simply by installing the mounting pins in the holes closer to the center. As for the AMD socket, a completely different bracket must be used. Also, the whole system is powered by a 3-pin fan connector.

Changing the bracket is done by removing the big black screw on the top of the block.

This is what the base looks like once the protective cover has been removed. The thermal interface is already applied. Obviously, this is good for one installation only, compared to most heatsinks which come with a small tube or envelope of thermal paste.

Finally, the serial number and all the other information is found at the bottom of the unit.

With the Domino A.L.C. comes two backplates, one for each Intel socket. As we have seen, the mounting bracket for these sockets is already installed on the unit, whereas the one for AMD systems is the black thing at the right in the  following picture. The stock backplate must be used in conjunction with the provided screws to install the CPU block. Everything is explained thoroughly in the user guide. There is also two extra rubber mounts that may reveal to be useful. During installation, one of the four installed on the unit has snapped when I was pulling on it. If you prefer, these rubber mounts can be replaced with the provided screws.

Here is what it looks like once it has been installed in the system. The tubing at the right in the following picture is a bit short. Two centimeters less and it would have been too short, but it may depend on your case. Since the HAF 932 I am using normally has a 140mm fan at the back, the Domino is not as close to the motherboard it would be in other cases. Also, it interfered with the side 230mm fan, but the rubber mounts allowed the unit to move a bit towards the motherboard, allowing me to close the case. In smaller cases with a side fan however, it could be a problem.

My camera was not able to grab the writings on the LCD at a distance, so here is a close-up on it. The little arrow on the left indicates that the unit is currently set on smart cooling. At the right, the fan and pump speeds can be read as well as the coolant temperature.

Now that we have seen what the Domino A.L.C. looks like, let's test its performance. Follow me on to the next page.