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BASE & INSTALLATION
The most critical aspect of installation is for the heatsink to be securely
mounted. The more firmly it is installed, the better the contact between the
heatsink's base and the GPU core itself. Ease of installation is also important
— a simple mounting scheme means less time spent installing, and a reduced
likelihood of screwing up.
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Our victim: a Radeon HD 4870. The included memory and VRM heatsinks
are 8 mm tall and while the adhesive film is not that strong (we dislodged
a couple of them accidentally during installation), they will hold. Reusing
them a second time on a different card is probably out of the question.
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The base is typical Scythe quality: nickel-plated, flat, and
with a dull finish. Installing the Musashi is very simple — in fact
it's tool-less after you remove the stock cooler. The first step is fix
the baseplate with double sided bolts.
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With the various heatsinks in place and thermal compound applied
to the core, drop the graphics card on top of the Musashi, place the backplate
over the bolts and use four nuts to secure it.
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Clearance under the cooler is good — as there is room to
spare, it would have been nice if they made the memory/VRM heatsinks taller.
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While we are impressed with the method, the actual mounting isn't
that secure. The heatsink can be wiggled slightly — perhaps the bolts
could've been shaved down slightly to create a tighter fit.
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Installed in our test system. The Musashi isn't quite a two-slot
solution — the fan does overlap slightly with the expansion slot
beneath it. Even if it didn't, installing a card there would cut off circulation.
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