Installation

This is where the review takes a turn for the worse I am afraid, as this was a rather troublesome install. Not in terms of difficulty, but in the fact that the CoolForce - when in place - only just about qualifies as being installed due to the number of issues with it's mounting.

The first and most obvious is that the shroud sticker is put on upside down. This might seem like a small detail, and it is, but it just looks silly. I initially thought I had it up the wrong way, but turning it around makes it impossible to mount as it extends beneath and behind the card. This can be seen in the pictures below.

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Once you have figured out that you need to mount it with everything looking upside down, it's not too complicated. Attach the cooler with a bit of paste, stick on the backing plate and it's rubber pad and screw on the small thumb screws.

Only two small complaints here: most manufacturers use foam pads instead of rubber to avoid sticking to card components which is obviously a plus, there is always that danger with rubber. The second problem is that the thumbscrews are quite difficult to turn by hand; defeating the point of having thumbscrews.

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With the Cool Force installed, we hit yet another issue. With the fan shroud being as chunky as it is, it manages to block the 6pin power cable from being pushed in fully and therefore stops it from powering the card.

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The only way to get the 6pin all the way in is to bend the cooler's shroud very slightly. I think it's safe to say that Spire's claim that the CoolForce 3 fits an x1950 is very dubious.

Also, the RAM sinks don't line up with the chips; at all.

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