Prolimatech MK-26 Multi-VGA Cooler Review

Prolimatech’s MK-26 VGA cooler currently retails for £52 in the UK and is also available in a sublime looking black version too for exactly the same price. In Europe CaseKing are also stocking this VGA cooler for €59.90 for the silver version and €64.90 for the black version. CaseKing also offer a bundle with the two fans we tested with (BitFenix Spectre Pro PWM 140mm) for €80.90 which is actually great value but as I mentioned already they are quite mediocre and you might actually be better placed purchasing different fans such Prolimatech’s own slim profile Vortex 14 140mm fans as these would be a great way to keep this VGA cooler triple slot.

Put simply the Prolimatech MK-26 is an outstandingly good VGA cooler. In fact it would tame just about any single GPU on the market quite comfortably without breaking into a sweat and it supports the GTX 680, GTX Titan, HD 7970 and other powerful single GPU graphics cards that produce a lot of heat. And let’s face it £52 is a pretty decent price too, sure you need to buy a couple of 140mm or 120mm fans to go with this which will add another £20-30 depending on what fans you choose but even so that is still a lot less than the £115 Arctic charge for their Accelero Hybrid VGA cooler which doesn’t even perform as good but is probably the next best alternative. Quite simply there is no other (air) VGA cooler on the market (that we know of) that can match this in raw performance or bang-for-buck terms. Of course water cooling would be able to trump it, but custom water cooling blocks cost at least £75 a piece and then you need the rest of the loop for that block to actually work.

However, the Prolimatech MK-26 isn’t perfect. Firstly, I was disappointed with how poor the VRAM heatsinks were in terms of adhesiveness, they didn’t stick at all and you’d definitely need to buy some more thermal glue to use these. Secondly, the design is huge  and even though this gives it great performance it also blocks SLI and CrossFire X bridges and takes up 3 to 4 slots depending on the fans you use (if you use any at all). This means SLI and CFX are out of the question and you need to triple check whether your other interface cards will fit alongside this cooler.

Pros

• Class-leading performance
• Excellent aesthetics and build quality
• Available in black or silver
• Extensive compatibility
• Good bundle
• Affordable price for performance
• Cools GPU core, VRAM and VRM
• High quality PK-3 thermal grease included

Cons

• Blocks SLI/CrossFireX
• Uses 3 to 4 PCI Express slots in width depending on fan choice
• VRAM heatsinks lack adhesiveness
• PWM cable isn’t sleeved or blackened

eTeknix says: The Prolimatech MK-26 is one of the best VGA coolers on the market in terms of raw cooling performance for all parts of the graphics card. Acoustic performance and cooling performance to an extent will vary by your choice of fans but Prolimatech have executed this design close to flawlessly in terms of the heatsink. If you are only interested in running one graphics card but with some serious overclocking, a desire for low temperatures or a desire for silence then the Prolimatech MK-26 is perfect for you.

As always we would like to say a big thank you to Overclockers UK and CaseKing for providing us with this review sample.