Once again this new base technique proved that it works. Direct touching heat pipes is definitively a great performance gain when it comes to heat pipe based coolers. The performance the 082 cooler was very good, and was only a couple degrees off of the massive cooler from 3R System. It was loud when the fan was on full speed, which was most of the time for my test system so it could do with a fan controller. Also, when I removed the protective base film, it left sticky all over the base - that should not happen, period. The big thing though - besides these little things which can be easily fixed - is that the cooler performs well, and performance is what we want.