Gigabyte G-Power 2 Pro Cooler

Final Thoughts

The Gigabyte G-Power II Pro really has surprised us. It's able to fill both the role of an extremely high performance cooler, and a very quiet one as well. With the fan running at full speed, and combined with a well ventilated case, the G-Power II Pro will produce simply brilliant results, yet with the adapter used and the fan speed dropped, you get a near silent cooling solution.

However, there are still minors flaws - namely the sheer size of the chrome shroud which obscures motherboard mounting screw holes, although those of you who follow our advice and seek out cases with a good removable motherboard trays won’t be effected.

Gigabyte could have also used a four-pin fan to take advantage of motherboard fan speed regulation systems, or even better a small fanbus to allow us to switch between it’s high quality cooling, and silent performance, but we respect this would have pushed up the cost and not everyone needs it.

Value wise, at an RRP of around £35.99 the G-Power II Pro is basically the same price as the Thermalright Ultra 120 eXtreme, but with the Thermalright you have to also buy a fan, so the price soon moves in Gigabyte’s favour unless you have a fan already. Compared to the Nocuta NH-U12P heatsink though, it gets even tougher for the Gigabyte, and quite frankly we'd choose the Noctua considering the cheap upgrade they intend to provide for the new Nehalem socket, the fact you get an exceptionally high quality fan with it and the pedigree behind Noctua heatsinks is just that much better. Essentially, £36 just feels a bit too expensive for this.


The G Power II Pro is the Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde of CPU coolers. Stick it on at full speed in the right case and it’s a high performance monster, delivering brilliant thermal results at the cost of a pretty audible but still un-intrusive fan. However, knock it down to 5V and it’s a silent and fairly capable CPU cooler, but it won't exactly blow your socks off. The crux of this whole equation is not a limitation of Gigabyte's cooler, but the environment in which it's entered into. We can't stress enough that this heatsink needs careful consideration before purchase, but it's still a good purchase none the less.

It might not manage to top the combined brilliance of silence and impressive performance that our reigning favourites, the Thermalright eXtreme 120 and Noctua NH-U12P can provide, but it can (rather than does) offer the best of both worlds, albeit not simultaneously.

• Performance
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• 8/10

• Features
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• -
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• 7/10

• Value
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• -
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• 7/10

• Overall
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• -
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• 8/10

What do these scores mean?