CoolIT Vantage A.L.C. CPU Water Cooler Review

Installing and Using the Vantage A.L.C.

Accessories for the Vantage A.L.C. look slim, but since the unit is completely assembled there isn’t much that is needed. What is included are 4 screws for attaching the radiator to the back of your case, all the Intel LGA socket backing plates and the AMD mounting system for AMD AM2, AM2+ and AM3 sockets.

The instruction manual for the Vantage is very nice. It features full color images and is very easy to follow.

Installing the Vantage A.L.C. into my Cooler Master HAF 912 was quick and easy. In all, start to finish was less than 10 minutes. It took me longer to pull the old CPU cooler off and clean the old thermal paste off the CPU. I did run into one snag but it has to do with the case rather than the Vantage. I use a Cooler Master HAF 912 for the test system, and in the top of the case I have two 120mm fans installed. The rear exhaust fan is rather close to the top of the case. So when I put the radiator in place the overall height interfered with the top rear fan.

To remedy this and still have both top exhaust fans I simply moved the fan to the outside top of the case. This allowed me to keep the system the same as it was for the other coolers I have tested. This will be an issue to address if you have a smallish midtower or one where the rear exhaust is close to the top of the case.

With the system powered up I can start to go through the menus and adjust the Vantage to what I like. The Vantage has three speeds: Quiet, Performance and Extreme. You can even change if the coolant temp is displayed in Celsius or Fahrenheit.

It can also change the LED backlight color to one of eight options: white, green, blue, purple, red, amber, temp and off. The temp color option will change the color of the LCD to reflect the coolant temp. It is green for when the system is running cool and fades to amber as the system gets hotter; if it gets too hot then the LCD turns red. There is also an additional option to have the color of the LCD pulse. With pulse turned on the color will fade on and fade off, which seems neat until you try to adjust the settings and have to try and read the menus in between the pulses in a dimly lit room.

The screen can also have its orientation changed to suit how you have the base installed on the CPU socket. If you would rather not see the fan and pump seeds you can change the screen to show just the CoolIT logo.

To simulate an error I unplugged the fan. Not only did the warning symbol show up, but a rather loud and annoying beep started until I plugged the fan back in.