Introduction

Cooling solutions come in different shapes and sizes but, for the most part, tower-style coolers have dominated the enthusiast marketplace, rightly so, since they have proven to be effective in heat dissipation. The downside, however, is that the clearance is limited to wide-bodied tower cases. While tower style coolers are effective at cooling the CPU, the surrounding components on the motherboard can have heat trapped underneath the larger passive VRM heatsinks. This is where downward blowing coolers have an advantage. The cooling fan is parallel to the motherboard so it is pushing air down to the components while it cools the aluminum fins.

Cooler Master first introduced the GeminII employing that idea and extending the cooling capability to two fans, effectively cooling the entire top half of the motherboard, including the RAM modules. Soon after, an update was released, using silent fans and using a smaller physical foot print so it can hit inside tighter spaces, like inside an HTPC and Cooler Master dubbed it the GeminII S. The latest incarnation of this downward blowing design is somewhere in between both the original GeminII and GeminII S, introducing the GeminII S524.

The Cooler Master GeminII S524 is equipped with a single 120mm fan but can also use a 140mm fan. The CM GeminII S524 improves upon the RAM module clearance issue of the GeminII S by having 47mm height clearance between the motherboard and the aluminum fins. The Cooler Master GeminII S524 uses the same five 6mm copper heatpipe design employed on the GeminII S but now comes nickel electroplated for improved conductivity and corrosion inhibition. The supplied 120mm PWM fan can operate between 800 to 1800 RPM, designed to perform at a low noise decibel range between 15.1 to 31.6 dBA. In terms of versatility, the Cooler Master GeminII S524 can be mounted in various orientations and is compatible with Intel socket 775 up to 1366, as well as AMD socket AM2 up to the latest FM1 and upcoming AM3+ sockets.