The Clips

The Armada uses two clips to hook itself to a memory module. To support different DIMM sizes, the clips can slide along the cooler's backbone.

Each clip has a rubber pad on both inner surfaces. They provide the grip necessary to hold the cooler in place. If you have a single-sided DIMM (with memory chips only on one side), you will need to use the included strip of two spacers.

However, the clips do not just rely on the rubber pads and spacers to keep a good hold on your memory module. It even comes with a locking mechanism. Check it out.

In the open position, the jaws of the clip are open, allowing you to easily place it over the memory module. To lock it in place, just flip the switch above the clip inwards. This squeezes the jaws of the clip close. The combination of the rubber pads and this locking mechanism ensures that the Armada will never slip off the memory module.

However, these clips appear to be designed for plain DIMMs that do not have any heatspreaders attached. Because modules with heatspreaders are much thicker, the clips will not fit properly onto the module.

Fortunately, the rubber pads ensured that even a poor fit like that, the cooler remained secured to the module. However, there was no way we could even attempt to lock it in place. The module was just too thick.

Power Cable

The Armada comes with a 3-pin power cable. That means you can plug it into any 3-pin power connector on the motherboard. That will allow you to monitor the fan speed, although it's not known if the result is an average of the three fan speeds, or just one of them.

Fans

VIZO used three 40mm DC fans running at 4500 RPM, delivering about 13.86 CFM of air flow per fan. With three fans side-by-side, that's a total air flow of 41.58 CFM.

Each fan also comes with three blue LED lights that really light up the entire cooler since it's almost completely made up of semi-translucent. Take a look at how bright the LED lights are in our testbed.

However, these fans use a sleeve bearing and have a noise level of about 27.98 dBA. We think VIZO should have used ball bearings instead. Ball bearings last longer, are quieter and work better in the vertical orientation that the Armada has to operate in.