Conclusion

OCZ continues to impress us with their heatsinks. Although the Gladiator II is not quite perfect, it does have the best cooling of every OCZ heatsink we have tested (3F cooler than the Dominator II @ full load). Although we did not test our AMD stock heatsink for this comparison, we could only imagine laughing at how superior the Gladiator II is.

As we found with the Dominator, the major drawback to the great cooling is the fan noise. If you are the kind of person who likes a silent PC, the Gladiator II is not for you. However, the copper base is a big improvement over the Dominator II's aluminum base. The pure copper matched with a powerful fan got us back down to idle levels fairly quickly. We only wished the base would have been lapped better, we could only imagine how good the cooling would have been if the base were smoother.

All in all, if you don't mind the extra noise the Gladiator II is a great heatsink. The price isn't bad either, Plain Label PC sells this heatsink for $22.

Pros: ·Great cooling ·Copper base makes a nice improvement over the Dominator II ·Only $22

Cons: ·Noisy ·Needs more lapping

Final Score: B+

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