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Sometimes, in the 'ole hardware-review game, you get things arriving on your doorstep that simply make you go "Wow." Now, I may be a little jaded, but it's been a while since anything had that effect on me. Mice with laser diodes in the bottom, ok cool. Big black klingon-weapon-looking mousepads, yeah yeah. Motherboards that are stable at 153% of their rated speed.. [stifles yawn].. whatever. Well, today I said "Wow." I said it mostly out of awe, but also with a hint of confusion.. but more on that later. Let's stick to the awe for now.

Go on, be not-awestruck. I dare you. Yes, it's a cooler. Yes, it's "we're not kidding anymore" huge. Yes, it weighs a lot and pushes a lot of air around. What is it? It's GlobalWin's new VOS-32 cooler for P3's, P2's and Athlons. That's right, you can put it on either an SECC1 processor such as a P2 or an Athlon, or with a flick of the wrist (well, several), you can use the included clip kit to mount it on your SECC2 (normal slot1) P3. But, in the fine tradition of info-mercials, that's not all! In this "Plus" setup you get an 80mm fan which sucks the hot exhaust from this cooler out of your case via a folded plastic duct! And, you get a tube of thermal paste! This is not really just a cooler - this is a cooling kit. In fact, it comes with 3 pages of instructions!

Right, now that I've taken a deep breath and calmed down a bit, let's look at it in a little more detail..

The Heatsink
The core of the unit is, of course, the heatsink. This is pretty standard fare made from milled aluminium but very large. As expected, GlobalWin once again use the Y.S.Tech 60mm fans they've used to good effect on loads of their other coolers including the FDP-32, one of the best Socket370 coolers around. Together these fans are push 52 cubic feet of air per minute over the heatsink. Both fans have intelligent 3-pin connectors but in case you can only spare 1 motherboard fan header GlobalWin have thoughtfully provided a Y-connector so you can drive both fans from 1 header (but only monitor one). Compare the size of the unit to the VEK-32 (shown mounted on a P2), which is not a small cooler:

Here's what the VOS-32 looks like mounted on the P2:

This last shot is interesting because it shows the offset fans and how much higher than the SECC1 casing the heatsink extends. This, besides increasing the surface area for radiation and convection, allows the fans to be higher above the motherboard. Keeping in mind that this is also an Athlon cooler, I wonder if this is designed to get around the problem with the power supply plug location on the Asus K7M (read our review for photos and info on the problem). I've no way to test for sure but from looking at my photos of the K7M that I took for the review, it looks as though you would be able to fit this cooler over the power connector if you bend the power cables fairly sharply once they come out of the back of the plug. If anyone tries this combination please drop me a note and let me know how it went.

This unit in the default SECC1 configuration has the same clip as their VEK-32 and FKK-32 (as seen in my recent SECC1 Cooler Comparison). This does grip very firmly but in the previous review I described it as a pain in the ass and I'm sorry to say it lives up to my expectations in that regard still. Basically, it's very fiddly to fit onto the SECC1 backplate, it looks like it's mounted but it will pop off unless you push the tabs into the slots with a screwdriver, and it's a mongrel to remove. In fact, GlobalWin have dropped the pretense and in the instruction sheet they tell you that you need to unscrew the fans (8 screws) before trying to remove the cooler from the processor. A quick note to the clip-design team at GlobalWin - Guys, check out the other review for how Vantec and RDJD solved the exact same problem and copy their ideas. Please.