The New Heatsink

The other day we received a new type of CPU heatsink: Thermaltake's Silent Tower. It has an interesting new design; it uses copper heatpipes and has aluminum fins on the top to dissipate the heat. At first glance you will notice that the sink is fairly large. Looks are deceiving though; it is not as heavy as may appear.

Specifications as Described on Box

Heatsink Specifications

• Compatibility: ALL
• Dimension: 60x60x145.5mm (59 Fins)
• Material: Copper Base & Aluminum Fins
• Heatpipe: Copper Tube (6mm x3 pcs)

Fan Specifications

• Fan Dimension: 90x90x25mm
• Rated Voltage: 12V
• Started Voltage: 7V
• Rated Current: .0.18A
• Power Input: 2.16 W
• Fan speed: 2500rpm
• Max Air flow: 52.24 CFM
• Noise: 21 DBA
• Bearing Type: 1 ball 1 sleeve
• Life: 60,000 Hours
• Connector: 3 Pin
• Total Weight: 675g

Included in Box

• Heatsink
• Fan
• Mounting Brackets - a variety of brackets for mounting to different motherboards
• Manual
• Thermal paste

Manual

The manual has pretty decent instructions on how to install the heatsink to all the different types of motherboards. It basically shows you the step by step instructions and the general idea of how things are suppose to be placed in order for the heatsink to work correctly.

Packaging

The heatsink came in a plastic clamshell. It’s very stylish packaging that would stand out among other brands. The sheer size of the thing helps too!

With the sink out of the box it seems pretty large. I wondered how it was going to fit in my case, and whether my motherboard would be able to take the leverage the heatsink would have on it once the job was done. I have seen something else like this happen before, and it was not pretty. The weight of the heatsink I saw pulled the socket clean off the motherboard. Take a look at it here: http://www.modthebox.com/review297_1.shtml.

As I looked at the bottom I notice that they did a poor job on making the copper as smooth as possible. You can see the machine grooves still left in it, so one could not call this a “mirror finish.” You can’t actually feel them, but the imperfections are there. I placed my guitar pick next to the sink and on the bottom of it you can see the reflection.

Installing: *SOCKET A*

• In order to get this massive heatsink onto the motherboard you must take it out in order to get to the backside of the board.
• Once your back there, place the foam gasket and line it up with the four holes. Then, place one of the silver brackets that looks like the foam gasket on top.
• Now you take your four bolts and place them in the holes according to your motherboard type. These are the only long bolt looking screws in the kit.
• Once the bolts are in place, take four bolt gaskets and put one on each bolt.
• Next, take a nut and tighten it down all the way so that the back bracket stays in place.
• Now put on the thermal paste on the CPU die and make sure it only covers the die because this is conductive. Now place the heatsink on with the according bracket.
• Once placed on top, take the other four bolts and screw those into place. (AMD users be careful and tighten down the bolts with the same pressure to prevent damage to the die. Too much pressure could crack the die making a Very light paperweight.)
• That’s it. Once that’s all done, place the motherboard carefully back in the case, plug everything back together and start it up.

Testing

Machine used

• Soyo Dragon kt400 plat. Edition
• 1.25gig of Mushkin ddr2100
• 2000+ Athlon XP
• WD 80gig hdd
• GeForce 4 Ti 4600
• Vantec fan Controller
• Chieftec case with 5 thermal take case fans

I compared this heatsink to Thermaltake’s Volcano 7. This is one of Thermaltakes famous heatsinks that is discontinued.

The Data

• Volcano 7
  Idle CPU = 40*C
  3374 RPM
  
• Load(Running prime 95 for an hour)
  CPU temp=48*C
  4000RPM
  
• Silent Tower
  Idle CPU=32*C
  2637RPM
  
• Load (Running Prime 95 for an hour)
  CPU temp = 38*C
  2637RPM
  

Conclusion

Putting the heatsink on only took an hour, which wasn't too bad, since I have put one these types of heatsinks on before. I definitely liked how it looked inside my case and how they made it look pleasing and not an ugly peace of cooper in there. The weight was not an issue at all. They came up with a good way of making it mount to the motherboard and not making that an issue at all. All in all I would say that this would be the last step before water-cooling. If you wanted to make it cooler than you would have to go to water-cooling. I would thank Thermaltake for the chance to review this heatsink.

Pros

• How quite the fan ran
• How well it kept the CPU cool
• The packaging and instructions
• Multiple fan mountings
• Every type of CPU supported

Cons

• Poorly machined plate that makes contact to the CPU
• No fan grill

Overall Scoring

• Design- 5/5
• Cooling- 5/5
• Quietness-5/5
• Installation- 4/5