With so many high-end air-based CPU coolers now available, it's becoming difficult to raise the bar in terms of thermal performance.
There's plenty of room to introduce coolers that look a little bit special, though, and that's certainly true of Nexus's latest - the VCT-9000.
The Dutch manufacturer's angled CPU cooler, pictured above, offers support for Intel sockets LGA 1136, 1156 and 775 and AMD sockets AM3 and AM2.
If looks are paramount to your windowed chassis, there's a good chance you won't mind seeing a VCT-9000 in your rig, but the cooler isn't just built to look cool - it should perform similarly, too.
Nexus reckons the cooler - measuring 144.92mm x 117.88mm x 132mm, and weighing 635g - makes use of "the most advanced technologies in the market" to create high-end performance whilst keeping noise levels below 16 dBA.
It's referring to five nickel-plated copper heatpipes - one of 8mm and four of 6mm diameter - that offer direct contact to the CPU, a baseplate equipped with a SkiveTek heatsink constructed from a single piece of aluminium, and three varieties of 0.33mm-thick aluminium fins on top of which lies a 120mm PWM-controlled fan at a 25.71° angle. Going that extra mile, Nexus has also ensured there's a V-shaped cutout in the bottom tier of aluminium fins, which it reckons helps channel airflow directly onto the SkiveTek heatsink above the CPU.
We'll have to await real-world performance figures to see how well it stacks up, but it's already scoring highly on our desire-o-meter. The Nexus VCT-9000 should become available before the end of the month, priced at around €50 (£45).
