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There's a simple "dial" (a potentiometer to be exact) attached to the power cable so you can choose how fast or how quiet you want the fan to be depending on the situation. So if your gaming, turn the fan speed (and noise) up but if your simply just surfing the web, you can turn the fan speed (and noise) down again. Coolermaster include a mounting system for this in the form of a PCI blanking plate with a central hole for the dial to be mounted on. The wire for the dial is about 30cms or 12 inches long so plenty of wire there to reach to the PCI slots. Ideally you would place this in the top or bottom PCI slot of your case making it easy to get at but what if you can't get at the rear of your case? Well first thing that springs to mind is why did you buy this HSF in the first place? But as I said before there is almost 30cm's of wire here so there's no reason you couldn't mount the dial elsewhere such as in the front of your case, using the included PCI blanking plate as a template for drilling a hole. The dial mounts with a simple wash and nut assembly, with the thread for this extending about 8mm, so you could easily mount this on a hole cut into a drive bay cover. A useful addition but one to be aware of before buying

The included Thermal Compound is just your white silicone stuff from Silmore but is better than nothing and something I think all HSF's should come with. Considering the quality of the rest of the package I was quite surprised to see that Coolermaster had skimped in the Thermal compound department, but at least there was some. Despite the 'low cost' materials used in constructing the X-Dream it still manages to give off an air of quality (with the exception of the base). The low cost materials are also light in weight which is another bonus. Let's hope it can perform as well.

Testing

The test system is as follow's :-

Athlon Thunderbird 1.4
Abit AT7 Max
Windows XP (Sp 1)
GeForce 4 Ti4600
Arctic Silver 2

The coolers I'm comparing with are :-

AKASA Silver Mountain 2Q
Swiftech MCX462 with Coolermaster 3000 RPM 80mm FAN

For idle settings, Windows was booted up and left for 15 minutes and a reading taken. For load settings Quake III Arena was left running a looped Timedemo for an hour and readings taken. This was done 3 times and the average temperature taken for each. Room temperature was maintained at 26C and the case side was left off.

Temperatures in Degrees Celcius

And for our American friends...

Temperatures in Degrees Fahrenheit

The X-Dream keeps up with the other coolers quite nicely, and at the highest rpm can even beat the Swiftech under load. But this is only where the rpm on the X-Dream has been increased to maximum. This in turn increases the noise output by quite a significant amount especially when compared to the other coolers which run very quiet. At highest rpm, the noise is pretty irritating. Not Delta or Tornado annoying, but louder than you would expect from an 80mm fan. When the X-Dream's rpm are at its lowest, performance (obviously) drops but it still doesn't do all that bad, and does it in almost complete silence, with only a slight background hum that you would have to really be listening for to hear. Running the X-Dream at about the halfway mark (3500 rpm) performance averages out, and the noise output is very tolerable. You can hear it, thats for sure, but it is a long way from loud and annoying. A pretty good perfomance from the X-Dream, not up there with the top coolers but certainly not bad.

Final Words

Coolermaster have obviously put a lot of thought into this HSF. They've listened to end users and provided the best of both worlds in regards to performance and noise. The materials used in constructing the unit are on the cheaper side and the savings of which will hopefully be passed on to the end user's. Despite the fact that a lot of the materials used here are cheap, the HSF does manage to provide a feeling of quality, although more along the lines of mass production quality than hand picked/constructed. Using plastic and aluminium as the majority construction material's also reduces the weight of the unit, which is good idea as lately the idea from manufacturers seems to be to put as much stress on the CPU socket as possible.

The aerodynamic grill, turquoise fan blades and holographic centre to the fan make the aesthetics quite pleasing to the eye. The clipping mechanism is of the tool free kind, using a simple push lever affair that makes installation a breeze. The base of the HSF with its copper insert is poorly machined with a lot of marks and scrapes, though it is at least flat. Might have been just my sample but something I would make you aware of. Be prepared for the possibility of lapping the sink.

Performance wise, the HAC-V81 delivers quite nicely, although I wouldn't call it a top performing HSF. Were it really shines though is in its ability to control the fan speed and therefore the noise output. Being able to choose a fan speed dependent on the systems current function can be a great asset to those looking for a 'best of both worlds' cooler.

Fan noise can be reduced whilst the system is idling or not performing a CPU intensive task (such as surfing the web) and conversely increased when under load to keep the temperatures down. When at its lowest speed, the X-Dream is virtually silent, but the higher the rpm, the more annoying the sound gets and at it's highest is pretty noisy. As I read over this review, the thing that stands out the most about it is the fan. Perhaps Coolermaster might like to market the fan on it's own as well as with the X-Dream.

Over all the X-Dream's performance was good, and being able to control the fan speed is a great addition to CPU cooling. Big thanks to for supplying the review sample.

Pros
Looks good
Copper cylinder inserted into aluminium design
Fan speed control
Virtually silent at low speeds
Good performance at high speeds
Funky hologram sticker effects when in motion

Cons
Poorly machined base
Noisy at highest RPM's

Bottom Line
Performance is ok, but controlling the fan speed is where this package really shines. Selling at about 20$ US, this is one heatsink you may want to consider.

If you got any comments, be sure to hit us up in our forums.

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