Gelid Silent Spirit CPU Cooler Review

Installation

Our past experience with pushpin coolers has been a mixed bag to say the least; heck some would go as far to say its been a real dogs breakfast with everything from the Good (Asus TRITON), the BAD (Xigmatek HDT S1283) and the UGLY (OCZ Gladiator MAX). If there is one thing that we have learned it is the most benign and innocuous looking cooler can end up being the biggest pain in the butt to install, and by the looks of this cooler this is going to be either a really easy or really curse worthy situation.


Since we are planning on using the Silent Spirit on Intel 775 based CPUs the first major hurdle (attaching the necessary brackets to the cooler) is already taken care for you, as they come pre-installed! This is always a nice bonus and certainly does shave a good minute or so off the time required for installation.

So far things seemed like they were looking up and we were in for a real easy ride! We will not debate the many merits and negatives of the pushpin setup, but we will say that this is a very light cooler (weighing in at only 370 grams) so we are not worried about the plastic plungers bending under its weight. After all, the Intel maximum weight for the 775 pushpin mounting setup is 550 grams. To put it another way this feather light cooler is certainly not going to overly stress the plastic pins so don’t worry about it.


The next thing we like to do after the cooler is ready for installation is prep the CPU, apply the TIM and then prep the bottom of the base of the cooler itself. In this instance this meant wiping away the very nicely and professionally applied GC1 TIM. As for the TIM installation itself we reached for out handy 1cc syringe which we have preloaded with MX-2 and used that for all testing phases.


With the cooler fully prepped and ready for installation the only thing left to do was make sure the four plungers were in their correct installation configuration and then gently place the Silent Spirit into position and press gently down on the four plungers. We pressed firmly yet gently on two of them at a time (diagonally opposed) to reduce pressure on the CPU.

In many instances a downdraft cooler can cause a lot of hassle getting all four plungers properly engaged but as this is a hybrid setup it was as easy as any tower style cooler; and in fact, was easier than even most of those. Needless to say we were pretty impressed with how easy the cooler was to install. We may still not be fond lovers of the pushpin installation but this certainly has shown that its not only Intel who knows how to get it right. Bravo Gelid for getting it right in an area in which many a veteran companies seem unable to excel.