CPU cooling has come a long way since the days of the block of aluminum with a fan on top. Moving forward we saw the introduction of tower style coolers with anywhere from 4 to 8 heat pipes of either the 6mm or 8mm variety.  Even though these types of coolers took up more real estate in your chassis they were also much more efficient in cooling your CPU. Bringing us to the point where the CPU cooler became the show piece of any build with coolers such as the NH-D14 from Noctua and the Cooler Master V10.

One thing I that keeps me going when reviewing coolers is the innovation that takes place from time to time, and we happen to have one of those here in our lab today in the Cooler Master TPC 812 Vapor Chamber Cooler.

Starting with the traditional heatpipe cooler with aluminum fins Cooler Master took the idea one step further and implanted two vertical vapor chambers inside the fin stack, now you may ask what is a vapor chamber? Vapor chambers and heatpipes work on the same idea, the difference is that vapor chambers are planar thermal devices that conduct heat in two dimensions whereas heatpipes are tubular structures that conduct heat in one direction along their structure.

With all of this technology being incorporated into one CPU Cooler you would think the price would be at the high end of the market, but in fact you can purchase this cooler for a mere 66$ USD right now at Newegg. With an exceptional price like that we must move on and see if this latest creation from CM is worthy or will it just be another cooler that ends up in the scrap bin.