Installation

The installation of the V1 Ultra is long and complicated. It took me about one hour to get it installed, and I think I'm not a newbie when it comes to VGA cooler installations.




The manual points out that you should not install the metal tabs with the protruding part facing up - I promptly did it wrong on the first try.


Getting the cooler over the videocard is a major pain. It takes a steady hand and patience to put the cooler on without messing up the thermal paste. This method of mounting also poses the risk that you break off a small component on the backside while sliding the cooler over the card. But if you are careful and take your time, everything will be fine.


When the cooler is installed, there are only a few millimeters of space on the backside between metal and electronic components. I don't want to imagine what happens if the cooler touches them. On my X850 PCI-E a metal part was right on top of the case of the VIVO chip, which blocked the whole construction from getting further to the components. Good coincidence.


Another issue was that the screws were too short. Good that the screws are a standard size. Digging through my tray of screws, I quickly found some compatible ones which were long enough to fit. Be careful that your total screw length is not too long, or you could damage the PCB.
Now the next issue I had here was that the holes of the black metal plate and the aluminum cooling plate did not perfectly match. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get in all screws. Since I'm not the person to let such issues "screw" my experience, I grabbed the power drill and enlarged the holes in the aluminum plate by drilling a 4mm hole into the existing ones. It was very easy to drill through the aluminum. Now everything fit fine. Be careful with the metal cuttings, if they end up on your video card they can easily cause a short circuit.

I did notify Thermalright of these problems and they are looking into getting them fixed.